Arsenius

ON ST. ARSENIUS, ANCHORITE,

ON MOUNT SCETIS IN LIBYA.

ABOUT THE YEAR 455.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Arsenius, Anchorite, on Mount Scetis in Libya (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. P.

§ I. Notice of Scetis; the etymology of the Saint's name, his country, birth; the life he led in the world; the education of Honorius and Arcadius.

Scetis or Scetis, Scethe, Scithi, Scitis, Scitium, the Scithiac region, already long ago described by us in the second volume of February, page 46, on the occasion of the holy abbot Moses the Libyan and his six companion monk Martyrs, The site of Scetis, etc.; is reckoned part of Libya; separated from Egypt properly so taken by the marshes of Mareotis and Moeris; and distinct from the mountains of Nitria and Pherme, as was said in the second volume of January, page 108. This place was memorable formerly for its many monasteries of monks treading in the footsteps of SS. Antony and Macarius, and growing bright with the innocence and holiness of their life, and among the places which St. Arsenius, the glory and standard of the monks in the East, illustrated by his virtues, it deservedly claims for itself the first parts. Sozomen makes mention of it in the Ecclesiastical History, book 3, chapter 14; and of the illustrious men who ennobled it, in book 6, chapters 29 and 30. This place the Saint made as it were his own and peculiar, forty years, and thus by far the greatest part of his solitary life, being passed in it; so that even on this account he deserves to be announced there rather than elsewhere, where he ended his life, in the title prefixed to this commentary, together with the Roman Martyrology, which nevertheless less properly reckons this mountain to Egypt, as will be said in another place.

[2] Our Greek-Latin Life, which we give, at number 27 hints at the etymology of the Saint, saying, the etymology of St. Arsenius's name, his country, birth, learning, parents. with a fitting signification of the matter, that he bore the name of MAN, and displayed nothing effeminate: for the adjective ἄρσην is the same as male or manly. The Life ascribed to Metaphrastes, in Surius, volume 3, from page 233, number 1, gives him for his country old Rome (not New, or Constantinople), from which namely he is said to have sprung. The same we gather both from the Basilian Synaxarium, volume 1 of May, page 723; and from the great Menaea of the Greeks, printed, on the 8th of the same month. The same country is expressly attributed to him in our Life, number 3. The splendor of his birth (of which in the same place in various passages) was adorned by a rare erudition in few, by which the Saint not only joined Greek with Latin (as you have at number 14) but was besides excellently cultivated in other faculties, is concluded from the authority and favor by which he prevailed with the emperor Theodosius. He is said to have had a sister by Metaphrastes, number 3, together with our copy, marked 1589, from a codex, if I rightly conjecture, Vatican, so to be named by us hereafter. The addition of the Hagenau codex of Usuard is foolish, if it would be believed without the testimony of the ancients, that St. Arsenius was the brother of St. Euphemianus, father of St. Alexius. The title of Saint, attributed to Euphemianus, we corrected in passing in the preliminary Commentary of St. Alexius on the 17th of this month, number 7. But as for what pertains to the parents of our Saint, we have them uncertain.

[3] It is not sufficiently established that he was a deacon of the Roman Church: Metaphrastes affirms, together with the Vatican copy, that he was a deacon of the holy Roman Church,

Baronius agreeing at the year 383, number 22, and 385, number 9, together with the Roman Martyrology; add John Zonaras, in the Annals of the royal Paris edition, volume 2, page 37; the Basilian Synaxarium and the printed Menaea, to say nothing of more recent writers, Louis Bulteau the Benedictine in the Monastic History, which he published anonymously in French in the year 1687, book 1, page 134; and the recent French Legend-writer, volume 2, page 295. The title of deacon I do not read in our Life, nor do I know that it is anywhere else attributed to the Saint in the ancient Martyrologies, or the Lives of the Fathers. Against it make the following. Metaphrastes says, number 5, that (Theodosius) decreed that he should be first of the senatorial order (understand a patrician), which dignity was the first after the imperial. In the Apophthegms of the Fathers, edited by Cotelier among the Monuments of the Greek Church, volume 1, page 367, he is called father of emperors. Besides, a thousand servants bound with a golden girdle, all adorned with necklaces and silk garments, attended him: and precious tapestries were spread under him; with which our Life agrees, number 20; where also, number 26, he is said, holding the first place with the emperors… to have been clothed in a golden robe. And so that deaconate, besides that it is not sufficiently proved, seems in no way to agree with what is said, so notable was the magnificence and luxury in which Arsenius abounded at court, as may be seen in our Life, numbers 13, 16, 20; in Cotelier, page 367 cited, in the Lives of the Fathers published by our Rosweyde, book 3, under the name of Rufinus the presbyter of Aquileia, pages 506 and 507.

[4] [and this is not proved from the fact that Arsenius received the sons of Theodosius from baptism;] Nor is that deaconate sufficiently proved from the Lives of the Fathers, same page 506, where these things are had: There was a certain man, under the emperor Theodosius, named Arsenius, whose sons, that is, Arcadius and Honorius, the Augustus received from baptism. Tillemont, Ecclesiastical Monuments, volume 14, page 795, warns that it must be examined whether to receive persons from the sacred font be not here the Office of a deacon; and whether attention should be paid to the Acts of St. Sebastian on the 20th of January, page 270, in which it is read thus: Therefore all those sixty-eight, baptized by St. Polycarp the presbyter, were received by St. Sebastian; who certainly was a layman; although this happened in the time of persecution. But he seems to seek a knot in a bulrush: for we do not think it doubtful that the office of raising the baptized from the sacred font was formerly, as it now is, common to seculars as well as to ecclesiastics, much less restricted to deacons alone. Onofrio Panvinio, in his special book On Paschal Baptism, excerpted from his commentaries, and printed at Rome in the year 1656, page 164, among the five ceremonies of baptism, places in the second place the sponsor, who raised from the sacred font, no mention being made whether he were a secular or an ecclesiastic: which Bellarmine also does not make, volume 3 of the Controversies, book 1 on the sacrament of baptism, where in chapter 26 he treats of sponsors.

[5] The words of the produced text, "received from baptism," Tillemont testifies are thus rendered in the Lives of the Fathers of Rufinus translated into French, which seems to be explained in the proper sense. as if Theodosius had delivered them into his hands after baptism; rightly adding that he can scarcely be brought to believe that this is the genuine sense of the words; which Cotelier in his notes, column 799, understands in the proper sense; but at column 800 thinks that the text of Rufinus just cited should be emended, by expunging "that is, Arcadius and Honorius," or rather, those words being retained, that "Augustos" should be written for "Augustus," and perhaps "who his sons." The last correction pleases most: for thus the sense will be that Arsenius received the Augusti Arcadius and Honorius from baptism. But the first correction distorts the words of Rufinus, as if he said that Theodosius received from baptism the sons of Arsenius; whom we do not know to have been married, and who in the Vatican Life is called παρθένος, a virgin. The addition of the Hagenau codex of Usuard expresses this sense distinctly, saying that the Saint was most dear to the emperor Theodosius, so that he raised his two sons from the font, all ambiguity being removed.

[6] For the rest, St. Arsenius presided over the education of both sons of Theodosius; Set over the education of both sons of Theodosius for the Greek-Latin Life of St. Euthymius in Cotelier, Monuments of the Greek Church, volume 2, page 248, hands down these things: In a fatherly manner he educated and instructed the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, and therefore by the holy fathers he was surnamed with the appellation of father. In agreement is the Life of the same St. Euthymius translated from the Greek by the Benedictine Monks, and printed among the Greek Analecta in the year 1688 at Paris, page 43; Metaphrastes, number 3, the Vatican copy together with our Life, number 4. A certain modern author, foolishly half-learned, in his critical Dictionary, printed in three volumes in French at Rotterdam in the year 1702, volume 1, page 381, rightly indeed observes with Baronius that Arsenius was not sent in the year 383 to be the tutor of Arcadius and Honorius, since Honorius alone was born in the year 384, as Tillemont proves, volume 5 of the History of the emperors, in the notes, page 735; but why is it not probable to that hypercritic that Arsenius stayed at the court of Theodosius until Honorius needed a tutor? For let us suppose that which will be proved in its place, that Arsenius fled from the court in the year 394; is there not enough time between the first coming of Arsenius to the court and his departure from it, that he could have instructed Honorius? For although he was summoned by Theodosius in the year 383, and then began to give himself to the education of Arcadius, nor could then render that office to Honorius not yet born; what forbids that in the following years he should have been designated for his education, and thereupon applied to it, and really in the ninth or tenth year of his age, or perhaps even earlier, informed him according to his age and capacity?

[7] Certainly he began to be employed in the education of Arcadius about the sixth year of his age, concurring with the year 383, according to what Socrates hands down, book 6, the Saint presided at least successively; chapter 23, saying that he numbered thirty-one years when he died, in the year 408, on the Kalends of May. For indeed the year 393 so little conflicts by defect of age with the education of Honorius under this master, that then he was declared emperor by Theodosius. In our Life, number 4, it is narrated: His fame (that of Arsenius) therefore being then brought to the ears of the great emperor Theodosius, seeking to set such a master over his sons Arcadius and Honorius, etc. which accordingly, unless you excuse it by prolepsis, is false. Establish the same of Metaphrastes, number 3. Theodosius… much solicitous about his children… sought… a guardian, tutor, and master, into whose hands he might deliver these, namely Arcadius and Honorius, as you have at number 6. Say the same of Zonaras: He called, he says, his two sons emperors; whom, since he wished them to be trained in letters and morals… he summons Arsenius. The same of Cedrenus, in the compendium of Histories of the royal Paris edition, page 327: Theodosius, at the beginning of his reign, had led away from Rome that great Arsenius, when he had heard of his skill in human and divine things, and had entrusted to him his sons Arcadius and Honorius to be instructed in sacred letters, and had constituted him father of the Caesars. The same, finally, establish of Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastical History, volume 2, book 12, chapter 23: The emperor, wishing to set a master of virtue over his children, committed them… to Arsenius. The great printed Menaea err basely, when for that cause they introduce Theodosius writing to the emperor Gratian and to Pope Innocent. To Gratian indeed he could write in favor of Arcadius, but not of Honorius, only then brought into the light, when Gratian had already died; but to Innocent he neither ever wrote, nor could write; who began to sit in the year 402; whereas Theodosius had already departed from among the living in the year 395, and Arsenius had already long since withdrawn himself from the court.

[8] which office the philosopher Themistius never constantly exercised. Another, besides Arsenius, we know of none who professedly, as they say, gave his labor to the education of those two princes. Baronius, at the year 393, treating of Themistius, a philosopher of great name from the times of the emperor Constantius, and his notable eulogist; and who lived under him to a very advanced age, held in great esteem by him, although he was a heathen; Baronius, I say, treating of him, says indeed from his own testimony (whose words, however, he does not bring forward) that Theodosius, about to set out from Constantinople to the West, commended to him his son Arcadius: and that in that same year he openly asked that the education of the praised prince be committed to him, you will find in Tillemont, History of the emperors, page 220 cited; but he adds that he was frustrated of his wish. And indeed what else could a philosopher, imbued with heathen principles, inspire in him, than a merely moral and human philosophy? granted even that he would not have infected the tender age of the prince with the errors of the Gentiles. Never therefore was the education of Arcadius committed wholly to Themistius, or for any notable time: Tillemont confessing that the philosopher indeed pretends that on some certain occasion Theodosius entrusted to him some care of him; but at page 732 in the notes he observes from the Greek text that Themistius by no means indicates this (John Harduin our man thinking otherwise, who edited his fifth oration at Paris in the year 1684) but that most probably Themistius speaks in the optative sense, as the grammarians speak; by which he does not assert that office committed to him, but desires it to be committed.

[9] [Certain facts, narrated by Metaphrastes at the time of the education of the princes,] Metaphrastes, or whatever other author in Surius, together with the Vatican transcript, reports that Arcadius and Honorius sat; but that Arsenius, as long as he instructed them, stood, revering in them the imperial dignity; that Theodosius, the matter being discovered, took it gravely and angrily, and ordered them to lay aside the insignia of empire. The fact is here narrated succinctly; by them it is adorned at length; Nicephorus adopting it. The insignia of empire had been conferred too publicly and solemnly by Theodosius on both those princes, for it to be easily believed that they were taken from them in so unworthy a manner on account of a scholastic fault; especially since Arcadius, from that conferred imperial dignity, was in the tenth year, but of his age in the sixteenth, when Honorius too was invested with it. More tolerable and less false, yet not sufficiently founded in antiquity, appears the narration of Zonaras, saying that Theodosius, indignant… ordered Arsenius to sit while teaching; and that from that time they observed this to him.

[10] Of the same meal seems another fact, in Surius under the name of Metaphrastes, number 8: Arcadius had committed some not small fault… which did not deserve pardon; are examined. the divine Arsenius beat him with scourges. He did not bear this lightly; thinking this to be an injury rather than a chastisement… he was indignant, nourishing anger within himself, and plotting death for his tutor, and desiring to accomplish the deed

desiring to accomplish the deed through a swordbearer, as is there narrated. This scene the Vatican Life adorns beyond belief, saying that the holy Man, on account of a boyish fault… struck him with so grievous a blow, that he almost held the memory of it to the point of death, and kept the traces of the blows… so exasperated, that after he had come to manly age, he wished secretly to kill him. But Arsenius had already long before hidden himself in the solitude, before Arcadius came to manly age. Then these things conflict with those which he subjoins a little after: While Arcadius and Honorius reigned, it became known that Arsenius was leading a solitary life in Egypt; and they wrote very many letters to him, asking that he would pray for his disciples and sons. But again Arcadius wrote to him, beseeching that he would pardon him his fault, which he had committed against Arsenius, wishing to take him out of the way. That chastisement of Arcadius, although related somewhat more mildly by Metaphrastes and Nicephorus Callistus, yet is not without difficulty: for who would believe that the son of so great an emperor, in about the sixteenth year of his age, already long since adorned with imperial honor, was beaten with scourges by his master? These are the scenic dreams of the Greeklings, unless they be proved from elsewhere.

§ II. The Saint's withdrawal into solitude, its causes and circumstances; the excellent deeds he did and words he spoke there.

That the Saint withdrew in the time of Theodosius, Metaphrastes is the author, number 9, in these words: But when the emperor (Theodosius) had not borne his flight in silence; [The Saint departed from the court about the year 394, in the fortieth year of his age.] but many… were often sent to seek him… nowhere… did Arsenius appear… thus through the whole (that is, the remaining) life of the Great Theodosius he lay hid. The same we have from the Vatican copy. Our Life only narrates that, the courts of the emperors being reckoned as nothing… he sailed to Alexandria; which neither includes nor excludes the death or life of Theodosius. The Lives of the Fathers in Rosweyde (we gave the words at number 4) seem to indicate that this withdrawal happened under Theodosius: because they immediately subjoin: This Arsenius therefore, kindled with the desire of divine love, leaving all the temporal glory of the world, went on to the desert of Scetis. Now since Arsenius instructed Honorius, and that indeed already an Augustus, as is made probable from what has been said; and since Honorius was not invested with that title before the 10th of January in the year of Christ 393 (nay perhaps only on the 20th of November of the same year, as Tillemont maintains, History of the emperors, volume 5 cited, from page 764), it seems the time of that departure can be attached to about the year 394. Certainly if you anticipate the year 390, scarcely will a time be found in which he can be understood to have instructed Honorius on account of his immature age; the title of Augustus being also set aside; but if you advance beyond the year 394, or the first days of the year 395, the withdrawal of Arsenius can no longer be combined with the life of Theodosius, snatched from among the living on the 17th of January 395. The age of life at which he withdrew is clearly indicated in the Life, number 23: He remained in the palace of the emperor Theodosius the Great… up to the fortieth year of his age. And thus explain the place in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 15, an uncertain Greek author, Pelagius the translator, page 621, number 10: He spent in the palace… of Theodosius forty years.

[12] warned by a divine voice. Metaphrastes, together with the Vatican copy, Zonaras, and Nicephorus Callistus, think that the flight of the holy Man from the court happened on the occasion of the hatred with which Arcadius is said to have burned against him. But since we have rejected that fact above, let us assign another cause. Our Life, numbers 4 and 5, hands down this: Having the fear of God in his mind, he groaned, and called upon God with tears, saying: Lord, show me the way in which I may be saved. And indeed, while one day he was in the court, he heard a divine voice, which said to him: Arsenius, if you wish to be saved, flee men, and you will be saved. When therefore Arsenius had heard these things, already long since wounded by divine desire… he sails to Alexandria. The Lives of the Fathers, book 3, page 506: They record that, kindled with the desire of divine love, he went on to the desert of Scetis. And in book 5, little book 2, page 563, he is said to have heard the divine voice twice, one while still dwelling in the court, the other while departing to the monastic life: and this is repeated in almost the same words, book 3, page 528: and it is conformable to the Life, numbers 4 and 6; to the things which are read in Cotelier, volume 1, page 353. Of the divine voice Metaphrastes, number 8, together with the Vatican copy. Nicephorus Callistus says that, when he betook himself to Scetis, he heard a voice brought to him from heaven. This voice, heard by Arsenius in the court, I suppose to have been the chief cause why he aspired to a more perfect life, mindful perhaps of that saying of Psalm 94, verse 8: Today, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

[13] Certain circumstances of that departure are examined, Zonaras hands down that he went out secretly; and he is founded on the Life, number 5. But why he hid himself more diligently, is recounted more fully by Metaphrastes and the Vatican copy: which the praised Nicephorus narrates thus summarily: After Arcadius came to the empire, it became known that he was following the angelic life. Accordingly the emperor, writing to him, asked both his prayer and blessing, and pardon of sin from him; and permitted him to give the tribute of all Egypt to the poor. But he did not accept this. Zonaras, page 38, writes that letters were given to him by both emperors Arcadius and Honorius, and that very often; also narrating this matter in a few words; but let it be permitted us to desire greater authority, before we admit so profuse and incredible a munificence. I marvel here that the recent French Legend-writer is so sparing of the censorial rod, elsewhere so exotically critical.

[14] as also a certain fact after his departure; Singular again is that which Metaphrastes commemorates, number 19: Arsenius was seen even, after he had come to the monastic life, to keep with himself as it were certain relics of courtly arrogance and superfluity: for in sitting, holding one foot raised over the other, he often heedlessly set it upon the other… This was seen by the fathers… but the great dignity and reverence of the Man drew them away from what they had resolved. But after the monk Poemen, who was incomparable in prudence and virtue alike, learned this too… When I, he said, come to the monks for the synaxis, and, sitting with you, sit in the same posture, while you look on, let this thing seem intolerable, but immediately proceed to rebuke me, and I will immediately yield: and, as one who behaves amiss in this matter, I will correct myself. Which fact indeed, when the divine Arsenius had understood, and quickly turned over in his mind, he let down his foot, and thereafter altogether abstained from this unseemly sitting. The same matter is recounted more verbosely in the Vatican transcript: I omit to inquire from what source it was drawn; it should certainly have been confirmed by greater authority, that it might be safely believed.

[15] The things which the Saint did and taught excellently in the solitude, in which he did many things excellently the author of the Life collected; who nevertheless left not a few things here to be illustrated and supplied from elsewhere. What is had in it, number 11, His cell was far distant, may thus be amplified from Cotelier, volume 1 of the Monuments of the Greek Church, page 357: They said of him that his cell was distant a space of thirty-two miles. But he did not readily go out: for others did the service for him. Of whom also in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, page 564. That he had his eyes repeatedly turned to heaven, we gather from the Lives of the Fathers, book 3, page 528, where, to his disciple announcing that strangers had come to see him: Permit me, he said, to look at heaven. In admitting those who visited him, he was most sparing: in the same place, book 5, page 592: Abbot Arsenius did not readily meet anyone. Metaphrastes, number 16, narrates these things: A certain brother, who had come from afar, and did not know where Arsenius had his habitation, then, having inquired, had scarcely found it. After he knew that he was coming to him… he began to throw stones and thus to repel him from himself. Believe it, posterity. Better the author of the Life, number 9, on the occasion of an old man visiting him, to whom he denied conversation: Nor let anyone think, he says, that this was done to the detriment of charity, of which he was most loving; but that he might not be called away even the least bit from perfection. He held taciturnity and silence most strictly. Lives of the Fathers, book 5, pages 608 and 609: Abbot Ammoys (Cotelier, page 390, Ammoës, in Greek Ἀμμώης) said to abbot Arsenius [*] at the beginning: How do you see me now? And he said: As an angel, father. And again he said to him afterward: Now how do you see me? And he said: As Satan: for even if you speak a good word, it is like a sword to me.

[16] In the ascetic Thesaurus, which our Possinus collected, and said and translated into Latin, published at Toulouse in the year 1683, page 240, I read these things: This too, frequently repeating to himself, he inculcated: Often have I repented of having spoken; never of having been silent; (which also the Life, number 22) but in Possinus follows: Therefore he avoided the conversations of men, unless he thought some meeting with someone necessary to himself and pleasing to God. Thus therefore doing, in a short time he became great, and surpassed almost all the fathers in the knowledge of divine things, and in the facility of explaining them. And yet the holy Man thought most humbly of himself; fleeing men not only from love of solitude, but also for this cause. Lives of the Fathers, book 5, page 592: They said of abbot Arsenius and abbot Theodore of Pherme, that above all things they hated human glory: for abbot Arsenius did not readily meet anyone. His so humble modesty was the cause why, distrusting himself in things to be done, he consulted others: hence in the same Possinus, page 247: He once went… to abbot Poemen with his disciple Isaac, and said to him: What shall I do with this Isaac, who gladly hears me discoursing of divine things? The abbot said to him: If you wish to help him, show him virtue by deed and example: for as to doctrine, however attentively hearing it, he remains slothful; but what you show by deed, in that he will persevere, drawing to imitation. There is added guarding of self in the Lives of the Fathers, book 3, page 611: A certain old man said: A monk ought daily, morning and evening, to consider in himself what he has done of the things which God wills, and what he has not done: and thus, examining his whole life, doing penance, one ought to be a monk: for thus abbot Arsenius lived. From the twenty-seventh step of John Climacus understand his zeal for the virtues: Remember, you who dwell in solitude, the institute of this solitary angel (Arsenius); and behold, how

that he might not omit that which was greater, he for the most part sent away those coming to him without a greeting.

[17] for instruction Now let us speak of the ascetic teachings of the Saint. In the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, page 578, a certain monk consults a certain old man how he ought to behave in the suggestion of unchaste thoughts; and in the meditation of the word of God, when he is not moved to compunction. Tillemont, volume 14, page 187, attributes that to Arsenius; and we think it truly to be his, as will appear from what follows. In the Lives of the Fathers, book 3, page 507: A certain one of the brethren said to blessed Arsenius: Behold, most blessed father, I hasten to meditate on the holy Scriptures which I have learned; and I feel no compunction in my heart; because I understand not the power of the divine Scripture: whence also my soul is greatly saddened. But blessed Arsenius answering said: You ought, son, incessantly to meditate on the words of the Lord: for I have heard, because blessed abbot Poemen said, and many others of the holy fathers: that those charmers who are wont to charm serpents do not themselves understand those words which they speak, but the serpents hearing understand the power of those words, and are quieted, and are subdued to them. So let us too do: for although we are not able to understand the power of the divine Scriptures, yet the demons hearing are terrified by the power of the divine word, and, put to flight, depart from us, not enduring the words of the Holy Spirit, which he spoke through his servants the prophets and apostles. These things there: which, some things being changed, are reported somewhat more briefly in the said book 5, page 578, although without the name of Arsenius; and since both texts declare the same in substance; and to the one which of the two is the more brief, in the same series of discourse, and with the same brother monk as interlocutor, is prefixed the following teaching, therefore we think a sufficient foundation is afforded us, that we should ascribe that too to St. Arsenius. Thus indeed the cited page 578 has.

[18] of others A certain brother questioned a certain old man, saying: What shall I do? because my thought is always bent on fornication, and does not let me rest one hour, and my soul is afflicted by this. But he said to him: When the demons sow thoughts in your heart, and you feel this; do not converse with your mind: because it is the demons' part to suggest: and although they do not fail to send these in, yet the demons do not extort. It is in you therefore to receive and not to receive. But the brother answering said to the Old man: And what shall I do? Because I am frail, and this passion overcomes me. But he said to him: Be attentive to such matters. Do you know what the Midianites did? They adorned their daughters, and set them in the sight of the Israelites: yet they did not extort of any that they should mingle with them: but those who wished ran into them. But others, being indignant, threatened, and with the destruction of those who had presumed avenged the fornication: so must one act also concerning fornication. And when they begin to speak in your heart, do not answer them: but rising, pray, and do penance, saying: Son of God, have mercy on me.

[19] In the same place, page 598: Abbot Daniel again related, useful that when abbot Arsenius was in Scetis, there was there a certain monk stealing the things which the old men had: but abbot Arsenius, wishing to gain him, and to give quiet to the old men, took him into his cell, and said to him: Whatever you wish, I will give you: only do not steal. And he gave him gold and coins, and little things, and everything which he had in his responsum, he gave him. But he again kept stealing. But the old men, seeing that he was not quieted, expelled him, saying: that if a brother is found having something of infirmity of body, one must bear with him; but if, having stolen and been admonished, he is not quieted, expel him; because he does detriment to his soul, and disturbs all who dwell in that place. By rescellae, little things, a diminutive from res (things); but by responsum a basket or hamper Rosweyde understands in his notations, scarcely doubting that the translator found in the Greek προσφωνάριον. Cotelier, page 421, reads: ἱματισμὸν, καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν χρείαν αὐτοῦ, that is, garment, and whatever was necessary for him; judging that Rosweyde thought ill in supposing the word προσφωνάριον to be in the Greek, as may be seen in Cotelier's notes, column 805. Our Cordier, in his notes to the Ascetic Institutions of St. Dorotheus, edited by him, page 190, holds that in the Greek there was the word ἀπόκρισις, response.

[20] He adds courage to the afflicted in the same Rosweyde, book 7, toward the hope of pardon an uncertain Greek author, Paschasius the translator, chapter 11, page 669: Abbot Arsenius said: A brick not baked, if it has been set in a foundation near a river, will not endure even one day: but if it has been well baked, it remains like a stone: so also a man not baked nor inflamed, according to what was said of Joseph: The word of the Lord inflamed him; is straightway, at the beginning of a carnal thought, dissolved. Similar things you have in the Life of St. Pachomius the abbot on the 14th of May, page 327. That saying is recorded somewhat otherwise and in more words in the same place, book 5, page 626, and is ascribed to abbot Orsisius: and perhaps it was pronounced by both, by the one indeed more succinctly, by the other more at length. In the same book 7, page 669, these things are had: The same (Arsenius), being asked by another brother, saying: If I have sinned, even in any least sin, and my thought consumes me, and reproaches me saying: Why have you sinned? What shall I do? The old man answered: At whatever hour a man has fallen into fault, and has said from his heart: Lord God, I have sinned, forgive me; straightway that consuming of thought or sadness will cease.

[21] and things suited to the amendment of life. Cotelier, volume 1, page 521, published these things: A certain one of the old men came to abbot Lot, into the little marsh of Arsinoe, and asked him for a cell, and he gave it him. But the old man was sick, and he refreshed him; and if any came to meet with abbot Lot, he brought it about that they should also visit the sick old man. He began therefore to speak to them the discourses of Origen: for which cause abbot Lot went to abbot Arsenius, and told him about the old man. Abbot Arsenius said: Do not expel him, but say to him: Behold of the good things of God; eat, drink, as you will; only do not utter these discourses: and if he will, he will amend; but if he will not amend himself, he will of his own accord ask to withdraw from the place, and you will not be the cause of his departure. And so abbot Lot, having returned, did thus. Then the old man, after he heard these things, would not be corrected, but began to ask, saying: For the Lord's sake, send me away from here: for I can no longer endure the solitude: and thus rising he went out, led away with charity.

[22] Toward offenders he was kind. Of his kindness toward offenders, especially the younger, in Socrates, book 4 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 23, it is read thus: Another likewise, named Arsenius, by no means separated from communion the younger monks who had offended, but those who were of advanced age: for he said that a young man who is excommunicated becomes contumacious: but that an older man quickly feels the pain of excommunication. Because we know of only one Arsenius among the solitaries, therefore this manner of acting does not seem, considering the text, to be attributable to any other. Socrates, however, since he there treats only of those who preceded the death of Valens, with the sole exception of Evagrius, on whom see, if you please, page 235; and concludes the cited chapter, saying: Evagrius… flourished a little after the death of Valens; the text is not without difficulty. Menard certainly, in the Concord of the rules, by St. Benedict abbot of Aniane, published at Paris in the year 1638, page 54, from the time in which those solitaries lived, of whom Socrates writes, thinks that here for Arsenius another should be substituted, in Greek Ἀρσίσιον, in Latin Orsiesius, or Orsiesis. Tillemont, volume 14, page 690, from the fact that he knows of only one Arsenius among the solitaries, thinks it seems that this deed can without difficulty be attributed to him; the difficulty of the above text from Socrates being nevertheless touched. I marvel that Tillemont here speaks thus, who in volume 7, page 165, had judged that deed must be denied to our Arsenius, as also in the notes to that volume, page 674.

* Cotelier: Isaiah; in Greek Ἠσαΐᾳ, otherwise Ἀσέῳ.

§ III. Other ascetic teachings; his flight from Scetis to Troe; thence to Canopus; the words and deeds of the Saint in both places examined.

The Saint is introduced narrating the example of an unbelieving monk, Cotelier, among the praised Apophthegms of the Fathers, volume 1, from page 421, published these things concerning St. Arsenius: Abbot Daniel of Pharan related these things: Our father abbot Arsenius said of a certain man of Scetis, that he was great in action, but in faith simple: whence, because he was unlearned, he was deceived, and said: The bread which we receive is not truly the body of Christ, but an antitype or figure. And two old men heard that he uttered such a discourse. But knowing him to be great in the manners of his life, they reckoned that he spoke thus from simplicity, without malice: whence, going to him, they said: Abba, we have heard a discourse contrary to the faith concerning a certain man, that he thinks the bread which we receive is not truly and in nature the body of Christ, but is an antitype. The old man answered: I am he who thinks thus. But they admonished him with these words: Abba, do not so hold, but as the Catholic Church hands down. For we believe that this very bread is the body of Christ; and the chalice, that this is itself the blood of Christ, according to truth, not according to figure. But as in the beginning of the world God, taking dust from the earth, formed man to his own image: nor can anyone say that it is not the image of God; although the image be incomprehensible: so also concerning the bread, of which he said: It is my body, we so believe, that according to truth it is the body of Christ.

[24] Then the old man said: Unless the thing itself has persuaded me, I will not be fully satisfied. concerning the truth of the Eucharist; They to him: Let us beseech God through this week concerning this mystery: we trust that he will reveal it to us. But the old man with gladness received the discourse, and prayed God, saying: Lord, you know that I am not unbelieving through malice; but lest through ignorance I go astray, reveal it to me, Lord Jesus Christ. The old men also, returning to their cells, besought God and said: Lord Jesus Christ, reveal this mystery to the old man, that he may believe, and not lose his labors. And God heard both. The week therefore being completed, they came on the Lord's day to the church, and the three alone stood together on one embrimium; but the old man was in the middle. Then were their eyes opened. For when the bread had been placed on the sacred table, to the three alone it appeared as a little child. And when the presbyter stretched out his hand

to break the bread, behold an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, having a knife, and slew the little child, and poured his blood into the chalice.

[25] Then when the presbyter broke the bread into particles, who is divinely healed by a moving miracle. the angel too cut particles from the little child. And when they drew near to receive of the holy things, to the old man alone was given bloody flesh. Which beholding, he feared, and cried out, saying: I believe, Lord, that the bread is your body, and the chalice your blood. And immediately the flesh which he held in his hands turned into bread, according to the mystery. And he received the communion, giving thanks to God. The old men said to him: God knows human nature, that it cannot feed on raw flesh; therefore he transformed his body into bread, and his blood into wine, for those who receive with faith. And they gave thanks to God concerning the old man, that he had not permitted his labors to perish. Then those three departed to their cells with great joy. The same history is read in the same place in Daniel, from page 421, in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, from page 635; which the author in Surius partly interpolated, partly cut short. Embrimium is rendered in the Lives of the Fathers, page 636, a seat of rush, which was bound in the manner of a bundle. Cotelier, in his notes, column 806, says that elsewhere is read, a cushion of rush: of which the Onomasticon of Rosweyde, appended to the Lives of the Fathers, page 1047; and in the same, among the Apophthegms of the Fathers, page 493, occurs: The old man therefore placed two embrimia… and said: Sit. Du Cange, in the Greek Glossary, says it is a mat finely combed out of coarse papyrus, from the old glosses. Consult the notes of Cotelier, column 806; where, the origin of the word being examined, he adds that embrimia or embrymia were little bundles bound together, full of various twigs. On this word the praised Du Cange also treats in the Latin Glossary, column 237.

[26] St. Arsenius is driven from Scetis Our Saint remained long indeed, but not always, in Scetis, compelled to change his seat by the barbarians bursting in there. Cassian, in Conference 2, chapter 6, and the Lives of the Fathers, book 3, page 529, call them Mazices; we shall call them Mazici, inhabitants of Libya. Palladius in the Lausiac History, chapter 7, indicates that they were neighbors to the Scetian solitude. Cassian describes their fury in the cited place, saying thus: A race more savage and cruel than almost all nations: for not even the desire of plunder, as some peoples, but the mere ferocity of mind incites them to the shedding of blood. Evagrius makes mention of them, book 1, chapter 7, and Ammianus, edited in the year 1693, book 29, chapter 5, as also besides in the notes to the said place. There may also be seen the things already long ago said in volume 2 of February, page 46. Of the robberies of the Mazici, and the flight of certain solitaries, treatment is made in the place just cited from the Lives of the Fathers. But a double incursion of these barbarians must be distinguished; one indeed about the first times in which St. Arsenius had betaken himself thither, namely about the year 395; from which he either did not flee, if we believe Metaphrastes; or if he fled, he doubtless returned thither not long after, so that, conformably to the chronology of the Life, the forty years spent by him there, and at the same time other periods spent elsewhere by him in solitude, may be found.

[27] at the time of the second incursion of the Mazici; To which is added another reason, assigned by Tillemont, volume 14, page 693, both for his own and for others' hasty return; connecting the second incursion of the barbarians with about the year 430 or 434. Then therefore the holy Man was torn from the solitude beloved by him and inhabited for about forty years, not without weeping; as the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, page 564, make credible: When the place which is called Scetis was reduced to a solitude (or, as in the Greek in Cotelier, ἠρημώθη, was laid waste, was desolated), he (Arsenius) went out weeping; and saying: The world has lost Rome (consult Baronius, year 410) and the monks Scetis. To the first invasion of the Mazici, therefore, but in the first he passed through them invisible, if we believe Metaphrastes. which Metaphrastes narrates in Surius, number 15, must be referred, if true, the things which he narrates: When the barbarians once made incursions into Scetis; some indeed of the fathers turned to flight, and by that means escaped from the barbarian hands. But no fear invaded Arsenius… but thus remaining in his cell: If God, he said, cares not for me: why should I wish to live? So saying and thinking, he rose and passed through the midst of the barbarians; and, suffering no harm, escaped safe: since he had given them no perception of himself at all. This is too marvelous and singular to be readily admitted on the sole authority of Metaphrastes, or whoever wrote these things, an authority not sufficiently fit to produce belief. What if he adapted to Arsenius here that which is narrated of Daniel, the Saint's disciple, in Cotelier, page 419: When the barbarians burst into Scetis, the fathers gave themselves to flight. But the old man said: If God cares not for me, why do I even live? And he passed through the midst of the barbarians, nor did they see him.

[28] To the first years of St. Arsenius in the desert, either before or after the first incursion of the Mazici, must also be referred To about which time another deed of the Saint must be referred. the things which the Life recounts, number 11; where a certain monk, burning with the desire of seeing Arsenius, is led to him, but is received very dryly and meagerly: Moses, converted from robbers, whom he afterward visited, receiving him most kindly. I think that here is designated Moses, the illustrious abbot, priest, and martyr, whose acts Tillemont collected and arranged, volume 10, from page 62; fixing his death, page 64, about the year 395; and page 76, placing it between the years 392 or 393 and 400: (of which matter fuller treatment may be made on the 28th of August with the Roman Martyrology) affirming this to be certain, page 75, that he ended his life before the year 420, from the fact that Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis, in the Lausiac History, chapter 22, speaks of his death.

[29] The place into which, Scetis being left, St. Arsenius withdrew, [As a fugitive in Troe he is visited by the uncle of Timothy, bishop of Alexandria,] is Troe, of upper Babylon toward Memphis; which he inhabited twice: the first time staying in it ten years, as is said in the Life, number 23; and the second time two years, as you have in the same place. Its site is clearly handed down by these two cities placed near it, formerly chief cities of Egypt, but now destroyed; of which see the particular chronographic table of the eremitic dwellings after the prolegomena to the Lives of the Fathers in Rosweyde; where, however, the name of that place I do not find. It is also called the Rock of Troe, in Cotelier, page 366, where too is set forth the following fact, entangled with many complications: The same (abbot Daniel) related, that at some time certain of the fathers came from Alexandria, to see abbot Arsenius: of whom one was the uncle of the old Timothy, archbishop of Alexandria, surnamed the poor, and had as companion one of the children of his brother. But then the Old man was sick, and would not meet them, lest others likewise should come and disturb him. He was then in the Rock of Troe. They returned sad. But it happened that an incursion of barbarians occurred: whence he remained of his own accord in the lower parts. Which being heard, they came again to visit him, and he received them eagerly. The brother who was with them said to him: Do you not know, Abba, that we, about to meet with you, went to Troe, and were not admitted by you? The Old man answered: You ate bread, and drank water: but I, son, truly tasted neither bread nor water; nor did I sit, punishing myself, until I had it ascertained that you had reached your place: because for my sake you had been wearied: but grant me pardon, brothers. They, refreshed, departed.

[30] To give the reason of the surname "the poor" (ἀκτήμονος) is not easy; as I nowhere else find it. All the difficulty here is raised by that one uncle of the old Timothy, archbishop of Alexandria whose age with this fact (whether he was really uncle on the mother's side, or on the father's; for θεῖος signifies both) who is said to have met the Saint. Various among the bishops of Alexandria offer themselves to us; but of whom one alone can somehow be combined chronologically with the present deed; and it is Timothy I, distinguished by the epithet παλαιοῦ, the old, here, unless I am mistaken, from other men of the same name who followed after him. Of this Timothy furthermore see, if you please, the chronological History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria prefixed to volume 5 of June, page * 50: but of the Lives of the Fathers which he wrote, Sozomen, book 6, chapter 29; Rosweyde, prolegomenon 4 to the Lives of the Fathers, section 1, and Vossius On the Greek Historians, book 2, chapter 19. Now let us weigh what things inconvenience the adapting of this Timothy to our matter here. St. Arsenius betook himself to Troe about the year 434: but that Timothy died in the year 385, and therefore it will be necessary to say that his uncle, who visited the Saint in the Rock of Troe, survived him by about 50 years.

[31] can scarcely be combined. The difficulty grows from the fact that the same persons, as we saw, are narrated to have met the same Saint in lower Egypt; by which, from what is to be said, seems to be understood Canopus; whither, because he went after ten years spent in Troe, it now follows that this happened about the year 444; and that uncle therefore then numbered about 90 years, even if we grant gratis that he was about 20 years younger than his nephew; who ascended the patriarchal chair in the year 381; in years if not weighed down, at least without doubt already mature in age for so notable a dignity. In Surius, for Timothy is put Theophilus; who, as may be seen in the said History, page * 51, died in the year 412; but besides that I know not by what fit authority that change was made; it is added that the difficulty is indeed thus far so far emptied, yet not altogether removed: for even thus that uncle must have survived his nephew by thirty years and more; which, although it be not impossible, is nevertheless not ordinary. What if the Saint, about the year 395, when the Mazici first devastated Scetis, because he was still a novice in the monastic life, stricken with the terror of the barbarians hanging over him, withdrew thence first to Troe, then into lower Egypt for some time; where this matter then happened? Metaphrastes in Surius, number 22: Thus, he says, the divine Arsenius did not absolutely and indiscriminately see and not see those who came, as was before

said, but with pious consideration and a certain divine judgment. For the rest, of those too who thus returned, and had neither seen nor met him, he had great regard, as he now shows from this excuse of himself to those who had not seen him. Better does Metaphrastes here depict the manners and disposition of the Saint, than above, where he treats of the brother who had come to see him and was assailed with stones.

[32] [He withdraws to Canopus; was he, and when, visited by Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria?] It must now be said what that Canopus of Alexandria is, in which the Life, number 23, the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, page 622, and Cotelier, page 371, record that the Saint spent three years. Canopus, in others Canobus, a city of Egypt, formerly episcopal, on the coast of the Egyptian sea at the western mouth of the Nile, which from it is called Canopic, distant from Alexandria 25 miles to the east, cannot be understood here; as is self-evident: for what has an Anchorite to do with urban din? It must therefore be another Canopus of which treatment is here made; namely a small island set opposite the Canopic mouth; not, however, as it is said in Surius, one of the seven mouths of the Nile, if we would speak properly. There, while the Saint dwelt: A certain senatorial woman came from Rome… desiring to see St. Arsenius, the archbishop Theophilus interposing his authority, that an easier approach to the Saint might be open to her. The deed is recounted more fully in the Life, number 12, as also in the Lives of the Fathers, book 3, page 51 (but for Canopus there is read Campus;) book 5, page 564; in Surius, number 17, and Cotelier, page 360. Meanwhile everywhere Theophilus is constantly expressed; who again recurs in our Life, number 9, and indeed seeking twice a meeting with the Saint; the place not being expressed where this happened; which perhaps was Scetis, but not Canopus; and so the persons, place, and time can aptly cohere. Judge otherwise of that former meeting of Theophilus at Canopus, which cannot be combined with his age, if you defer it according to the order of the narrative in the Life, number 23 (why not also of time?) until the said three years which the Saint spent at Canopus; as will become clear from our chronology, since Theophilus died in the year, as we said, 412, and St. Cyril I, who followed him, sat until the year 444. But if you establish that the Saint, at the time when he dwelt in Scetis, namely at the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the fifth, withdrew for a while to Canopus, and there was met by Theophilus, you will have arranged the matter conveniently.

§ IV. The return to Troe; his death, burial, the chronology of his life, his disciples.

But not even in lower Egypt itself, whither for the sake of greater quiet he had withdrawn, was the holy man permitted to be quiet; St. Arsenius having departed to the parts of Alexandria, for, as it is in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 15, number 9: While the same abbot Arsenius was once dwelling in the lower parts of Egypt, when he suffered importunities there, it seemed good to him to leave his cell: and taking nothing from it with him, he sent away Alexander and Zoilus, his disciples, who were then with him, perhaps that he might give himself to a stricter solitude: of which matter treatment is also made in the Life, number 18, and in Cotelier, page 363. Then a little after it is reported in the same Lives of the Fathers: The old man went down to the parts of Alexandria, and fell sick with a great sickness. Our Life says: The old man went down… to the parts of the Thebaid, and was seized with a grave infirmity. Cotelier reads, to the parts of Alexandria. And thus it certainly must be read: for what had Arsenius, dwelling in lower Egypt, to do with the parts of the Thebaid, extended in upper Egypt, which is divided from the lower by almost all Egypt? Not to heap up more; the matter will be made clear from the context of the Life. He said to Alexander: Rise and sail: and he obeyed. And to Zoilus he said: Come with me as far as the river, and seek me a ship which sails toward Alexandria: and so do you sail to your brother. Zoilus, troubled at these words, was silent: and thus the one was separated from the other. See now how these things cohere with those which soon follow in the same place: The old man therefore went down to the parts of the Thebaid, and was seized with a grave infirmity.

[34] And so, not in the Thebaid (where I know not that he ever was in his whole life), but in the parts of Alexandria, the Saint, healed of his disease, returns to Troe, and there dies, foreknowing his death; meditates a return to his own people in Troe; which the Life goes on to weave in this manner: But the old man, restored to health, said: I will go to my fathers. And thus, carried back by ship, he came to the Rock (of Troe); where were his disciples, three years being run through at Canopus and the parts of Alexandria. But when he was near the river (the Nile), happened the history of the Ethiopian woman, wishing to touch his sheepskin cloak; the meeting of his disciples Alexander and Zoilus; and the rest in the same number 18. And they remained with him until his death; namely through the two last years of his life, in which, returned to Troe, he closed his life there, finishing his course in peace and in the fear of God, as is said, number 23. Here pertains the warning given to his disciples before his death; which, number 22, he shows himself to have foreknown: The disciples were troubled hearing these things: And he said to them: The hour has not yet come; but when it comes, I will tell you: of which the Lives of the Fathers, page 621, and Cotelier, page 369; which things are amplified in Surius, number 27.

[35] after he had forbidden his body to be given to anyone after death, Certain things also concerning his body after death he prescribed to his disciples to be observed, number 21: I must, he said, undergo judgment with you before the tribunal of Christ, if you give my body to anyone: whether that he might ward off from himself after death all honors, which so earnestly he had always declined in life; or that he might cut off all occasion for what I will not call folly rather than an inveterate superstition, with which the heathen Egyptians were wont to follow the bodies of the dead; the example being perhaps set before him of St. Antony the abbot, in whose Life on the 17th of January, number 139, these things are narrated: The discourse being finished, the brethren very vehemently held him back, desiring to be adorned with the glorious end of the Father: but for many causes, which he showed even by silence, chiefly however on account of the presumed custom of Egypt, he gainsaid them. For it is the custom of the Egyptians to wrap the bodies of the noble and especially of the blessed Martyrs in linen, and not to deny the accustomed care to the funeral; but not to hide them in earth, but to keep them placed upon little beds at home. This honor to be rendered to those at rest, the vanity of an inveterate custom handed down.

[36] and had ordered it to be buried in a most abject place; More things in the same place; where the annotations too may be consulted; Baronius at the year 358, number 23; and our Rosweyde in the notations to the Lives of the Fathers, page 73; who collected more about the cause, origin, and manner of embalming bodies among the Egyptians; which, although forbidden, yet you will find there to have persevered among the Christians after the times of St. Antony. But to return to St. Arsenius; he seems to have commended to his disciples that they should bury his body in an unknown and hidden place: for, What then, they say, shall we do? Because we know not how to bury it. And the old man says to them: Do you not know how to cast a rope, and take me up onto the mountain? Here again he could take his example from the great Antony, of whom in the cited place, page 140, these things are reported: The disciples kept the commands, covering the body (as he had ordered) with earth, wrapped up; and no one meanwhile, up to this day, except them, knows where it is laid: of which matter Baronius in the place just assigned. Metaphrastes narrates the burial of our Saint thus, number 27:

[37] it to be buried. And his dead body, in the very garments in which he had been clothed, namely the hair-shirt and his sheepskin, his disciples, when they had sung psalms according to custom, laid down in a certain place of Stroma; the oft-cited French Legend-writer adopting the things which are here recorded of the garments, the hair-shirt namely and the sheepskin. But Daniel, the Saint's disciple, in Cotelier, page 371, testifies the contrary in express words: He left, he says, to me his leathern tunic, a white sackcloth garment, with palm-leaf sandals. Which I, unworthy, wore, that through them I might be blessed. The same our Life testifies, number 23. His example again had been given him by St. Antony, in the same page 140: Let there be this division of my garments: give the sheepskin and the worn cloak, on which I lie, to bishop Athanasius, which he himself had brought me new. Let bishop Serapion receive the other sheepskin: do you have the hair-cloth garment. Have now the chronology of the Life of St. Arsenius.

[38] The author of the Life suggests it, number 23, together with the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, The chronology of his life little book 15, and Cotelier, page 371. Which things, as the matter brought them, were reported scatteredly above, must here again be set before the eyes and joined together: He died in the ninety-fifth year of his age. He remained in the palace of the emperor Theodosius the Great… up to the fortieth year of his age: in Scetis forty years: but in Troe of upper Babylon toward Memphis ten years: three at Canopus of Alexandria: and in the remaining two years he returned to Troe; and there fell asleep. Thus our Life in the said number 23. These things being laid down, we arrange the whole series of his life approximately thus. We fix his birth in the year of Christ 354. He lived in the world forty years, namely up to the year of Christ 394; within which he came to the court in the year of Christ 383, in the 29th year of his age; beginning to give himself to the education and instruction of Arcadius, who numbered six years. Honorius, according to what has been said, was added in the year of Christ 392, in the eighth year of his age. He left the court, Theodosius the emperor being still alive, as we established above probably enough, in the year of Christ 394, in the fortieth year of his age, having stayed in it eleven years.

[39] Add another forty years in Scetis up to the eightieth year of his age, it is here woven together. the year of Christ 434; ten in Troe, which concur with the ninetieth year of his age, the year of Christ 444; three likewise at Canopus, and the two last in Troe; and now there will arise in all ninety-five years of his age; the last of them concurring with the year of Christ 449 or 450 begun. Wrongly therefore in Surius, number 27, and Lippeloo, volume 3, page 209; add Gazet in the Lives of the Saints, volume 2, page 85, the sum of his life is extended up to a hundred and twenty years. The same Gazet wrongly writes that he died about the year 430. Less do Tillemont and the new French Legend-writer depart from us; of whom the former notes the year 445 or a little after; but the latter the same year 445. But indeed, since in our reckoning all things cohere rightly enough, I think we must stand by it.

[40] St. Arsenius had three disciples, namely Daniel, Those things are illustrated, Zoilus, and Alexander; as is concluded from

what has been said, the Lives of the Fathers, and the Coterelian collection, pages 241 and 363. The two last were men of Pharan, according to our Life, number 18, and the praised collection in the same number 363. Of Daniel the same was affirmed above at the beginning of the third paragraph. But there is more than one place of that name. In the preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Euthymius on the 20th of January, page 298, occurs the laura of Pharan, distant six miles from Jerusalem toward the East by the Jericho road, named from a village which lies ten stadia thence toward the rising sun, and built by St. Chariton; of which in the same place, pages 303, 304, and 308. And in the Life of the same Saint, page 327, these things are said: There is… a certain village toward the rising sun distant from the laura of Pharan ten stadia, which itself too is called Pharan: which indeed did not receive its surname, as I think, but rather gave its name to the laura. There is also Phara or Pharan (in Greek Φαρὰν, in Hebrew Paran) a city or town of Arabia Petraea on the Arabian gulf, between Egypt and Arabia; and besides a well-known solitude of the same name outside the town. Consult the particular Chorography of Rosweyde praised above, and other geographers. Thence is formed the gentile name Pharanita, which I think fits these three disciples not on account of the laura of Pharan, but on account of their birth from Pharan (whether the town or the solitude?) of Arabia Petraea.

[41] which concerning the three disciples of the Saint, Furthermore, that Daniel was younger than the other two, from the things which he reports in Cotelier, page 371, calling them his fathers (πατέρας), Tillemont gathers, page 698: but against it is the fact that Arsenius, as we saw, number 34, about to go to the Rock of Troe to his disciples, therefore younger than himself, says: I will go to my fathers. In the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 18, page 636, Daniel is introduced narrating a certain history, and making mention of St. Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, with the title of holy memory added: whence it is clear that he survived him in the year 444. Nay rather he survived even his holy master himself, as is clear from the things premised a little before concerning his garments, worn by him after his death. More sayings of Daniel are reported under a particular title in Cotelier from page 419; and also scatteredly in various places in the Lives of the Fathers. What is said on the 14th of April, page 214, of Daniel abbot of Scetis, who took care that the body of St. Thomais, slain for the preservation of chastity, should be carried to Scetis, and there buried it in his own cemetery, we judged should be attributed to the Daniel of whom we here treat; and from his epoch we fixed the time of the martyrdom of the aforesaid Saint in the fifth century. Meanwhile distinguish this Daniel from another ascetic of the same name and place, whom Cassian, in Conference 4, chapter 1, testifies that he saw among the others of the Christian philosophy, equal indeed in every kind of virtues to those who dwelt in the desert of Scetis; and whom he commends chiefly for humility: for he was older than this our Daniel by at least half a century: for Paphnutius, under whom he lived, having died at the end of the fourth century, as you may see in Tillemont, volume 10, page 57, sent before him to God this man whom he had prepared as his successor, according to the praised Cassian.

[42] is found in various places: to which elsewhere a fourth is added. Zoilus, together with Alexander, had been a disciple of Agatho (see Cotelier from page 372) before he came to Arsenius. I think what is read in the same place, page 378, must be understood of both: Abbot Agatho once had two disciples, who separately led the anchoretic life. And on page 380 these things are had: Abbot Daniel related, before abbot Arsenius came to my fathers, they too remained with abbot Agatho. But abbot Agatho loved abbot Alexander, because he was meek, and diligent in the monastic exercise. But he seems to have been somewhat slow: for, as is added, it further happened that all his (Agatho's) disciples were washing rushes in the river; and abbot Alexander washed moderately. But the other brethren said to the old man: Brother Alexander does nothing. Whence, wishing to heal them, he said to him: Brother Alexander, wash them: for they are of flax. And when he heard this, he took it bitterly. And afterward the old man consoled him with these words: Did I not know that you were acting rightly? But I said this to you before them, brother, that I might care for their mind in your obedience. But our Life indicates this more clearly, number 17: But abbot Alexander labored slowly and moderately… But abbot Arsenius, when he saw him drawing out delays, thinking perhaps he had guests, ate. But Alexander, when he had finished, returned in the evening.

[43] But again, in the author just cited, page 358, the following are had: Abbot Daniel, disciple of abbot Arsenius, related in this manner: I was once near abbot Alexander, and was seized with pain, and stretched myself out on account of the sickness, looking upward. But it happened that blessed Arsenius came to speak to him; and saw him stretched out. After therefore he had spoken, he said to him: And who was the secular man whom I saw here? Abbot Alexander answered: Where did you see him? He said: When I came down from the mountain, I looked here toward the cave, and saw someone stretched out, gazing upward. Then, with his body inclined, he asked pardon of him, saying: Spare me: it was I: for pain seized me. Then the old man: You then it was. It is well: I thought it had been a man of the world, and therefore I inquired. The same things are narrated a little otherwise in Surius, number 19. To these three disciples of the Saint another, named Isaac, is added in the ascetic Thesaurus of Possinus, book 9, page 247. The words you have above, number 16. Of Ammoë, friend of St. Arsenius, and his disciple John, Tillemont collected various things from page 701.

§ V. His memory in the Fasti; his cult in Gaul, Belgium, and Germany; eulogies; the Life which we publish; others written by others.

The Saint is venerated among the Greeks on the 8th of May, and is celebrated with the eulogies, as you have in the Passed-Over at that day, He is venerated by the Greeks on the 8th of May, due to him. The Typicon, bearing the name of St. Sabas, though variously augmented by later hands, page 50, announces him thus: Of our holy father Arsenius, the surname of the Great being added, together with other Greek tables here and there; which the Greek Horologion for the use of the Basilian monks, published at Rome in the year 1677, omits. It would be long to heap up other Greek tables, whether printed or manuscript, which report the Saint. The great printed Menaea chant to him the following distich, very slightly corrected by me:

Λαθεῖν βιώσας Ἀρσένιος ἠγάπα, Ὃς οὐδὲ πάντως ἐκβιώσας λανθάνει.

To lie hidden, while he lives, Arsenius loves: / But, being dead, in no way does Arsenius lie hidden.

[45] Among the Latins he is venerated on this day, the 19th of July. Bede, augmented by Florus and edited by us before the second volume of March, but by the Latins on this day together with Ado, has thus: Of our holy father Arsenius; of whom in the words of the elders it is reported, that on account of wiping away the abundance of his tears, he always had a handkerchief in his bosom or in his hand; see, if you please, the Life, numbers 1 and 15. Usuard prefixes "near the Thebaid," less rightly: for the Saint dwelt not in upper Egypt, but either in the lower, as we saw, or in Scetis near it. Of the division of Egypt we spoke in the preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Antony the abbot, §1, number 2. Wandelbert chants thus to the Saint:

Arsenius the hermit graces the fourth day and the tenth:

[46] Finally the modern Roman Martyrology has thus: together with the modern Roman. At Scetis, a mountain of Egypt, of St. Arsenius, deacon of the Roman Church, who, in the time of Theodosius withdrawing into solitude, consummated in all virtues, and drenched with a continual shower of tears, rendered his spirit to God. That Scetis is a part of Libya, and therefore wont to be distinguished from Egypt everywhere in the Lives of the Fathers, was shown already long ago in the Commentary mentioned a little before, number 3. Of the deaconate of the Saint we set forth our mind above, numbers 3 and 4. Maurolycus calls him abbot: but if by this he means something other than a name formerly common to all monks, especially those venerable for age and holiness, we think it must be denied to Arsenius, as one whom we never know to have been a hegumen in the strict sense of the name, or head of an ascetic community. The same author, what does he mean, when he announces the Saint "at the solitude of Scythopolis, and of Egyptian Babylon"? We know no Scythopolis except the metropolis of second Palestine on the Jordan; of which see the 20th of January in the notes, page 308: but without doubt from Scetis not sufficiently understood he formed Scythopolis. See volume 2 of February, page 46, number 3.

[47] His cult in Gaul and Belgium, Our Saint shone with a certain special veneration in Gaul. For he is inscribed in our transcript from the old Breviary of Saint-Malo, revised by the most illustrious Lord Jean du Bec, bishop of Saint-Malo, in the year 1603, as also in that of Beauvais, published in the year 1554, Odo being bishop of Beauvais; to which add the transcripts from the Calendar of Orleans, the old one of St. Aignan of Orleans, and the ancient one of Le Mans; but in this next-to-last he is more rightly noted without the title of abbot, which in the others is added to him. St. Arsenius had also something singular in our Belgium: for in the manuscript Calendar of the church of Utrecht, which we have, of the year 1374, neatly written on parchment, is noted Arsenius the monk. In the Missal of Tournai, which was printed in the year 1498 and 1509, there is set of him a COLLECT: Be present, O Lord, to our prayers, which we offer in the commemoration of St. Arsenius, your confessor, etc. Secret: Guard us, we beseech you, O Lord, by the protections of St. Arsenius your confessor, and may we ever be helped by his intercessions. Through. Postcommunion: Mercifully bestow on us your mercy, O Lord, we beseech, blessed Arsenius your confessor interceding; and be propitious to us sinners by his suffrages. Through.

[48] and in Germany. That a special cult was also paid to him in Germany is an argument the proper Mass of the Mainz Missal, printed in the year 1493. Introit: The mouth of the just. Collect: O God, who to blessed Arsenius, your confessor, from the gift of your singular grace gave a contrite heart and a continual inundation of tears; grant propitiously to us, by his merits and prayers, pardon of our sins, and pure contrition of heart, and the tears of true penitence, and under the protection of your peace and protection conclude our days with a wholesome end. Through. Epistle: Blessed the man who in wisdom. Gradual: O Lord, you have prevented. Alleluia. He loved him. Gospel according to Mark: At that time Jesus said to his disciples: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Offertory: The desire of the soul. Secret: Look upon your people, O Lord, appeased by the sacred gifts, and may the sacraments which have been offered in the commemoration of St. Arsenius your confessor lift us up to receive worthily the heavenly things. Through the Lord. Communion. Amen I say to you: Postcommunion:

Grant, we beseech, by your ineffable clemency, O God, that as we venerate the solemnity of your blessed confessor Arsenius by this office: so we may rejoice with him in the fellowship of your Saints. Through.

[49] Various eulogies of the Saint Of his eulogies receive these. That already in the first years of his withdrawal he shone with a great fame of celebrity is clear from the epistle of St. Jerome, who died before him in the year 420, in the ancient order the 27th, where, comprising much in few words, he writes thus: What shall I tell of the Macarii, the Arsenii, the Serapions, and the other names of the pillars of Christ? St. John Climacus, of whom we treated on the 30th of March, page 834, who died at the end of the 6th century, in Step 27, page 286 of the Cologne printing of the year 1583, has these things: Let the great Arsenius, that solitary equal to the angels, be to you a model of quiet. Remember, you who dwell in solitude, the institute of this solitary angel; and behold, how he for the most part sent away those coming to him (that he might not omit that which was greater) without a greeting. Cyril the monk, who flourished in the same sixth century, in the Life of St. Euthymius praised above, indicates that he looked into the life of St. Arsenius as into a mirror, when in volume 2 of January, page 311, he hands down these things: This one therefore (Arsenius) Euthymius most diligently imitated, and to those monks who came from Egypt, and reported something of his manner of life, he gladly lent his mind, and took care to inscribe his good deeds as on certain tablets of his own soul. Which things also see in Cotelier, volume 2 of the Monuments of the Greek Church, page 248. These things indeed too much agree with what the author of our Life has, number 24, for him not to have had that Greek text before his eyes, or transcribed it.

[50] The eulogy from the Basilian Synaxarium I render thus: Arsenius, are heaped together our holy father, sprung from ancient Rome, was a deacon of the most holy Church of God: but on account of his knowledge and virtue he was chosen by the great emperor Theodosius, to teach his children Arcadius and Honorius not only letters, but also virtue. And he was so highly esteemed by the emperor, that he was called the emperor's father. But he, hating tumults, turning away from the earthly emperor, and loving solitude, and burning with the desire of the heavenly emperor, asked him to lead him into the way in which he ought to obtain salvation. And so a voice glided down to him from heaven, saying three times: Arsenius, flee men, and you will be saved. And soon, his garments changed, and clothed in poor ones, he departed into Egypt, and hid himself in the solitude: and after he had so consummated the course of the contest, as no other did, he migrated to the Lord in declining old age. Of the deaconate above, to say it again, we have discoursed. I omit the eulogy which Nicephorus Callistus wove together in volume 2 of the Ecclesiastical History, book 12, in the whole of chapter 23. What in it displeases us we have already noted.

[51] Rightly did he say of him, that his glory (τῆς ἀρετῆς, with our observations. of his virtue, as it is in the Greek text, which the translator omitted) traversed all the earth under the sun. But that: When… he had reached the summit of virtue, he feigned himself a rustic and ignorant of all letters: whereas indeed he left monuments worthy of memory, and very many books (λόγους πλείστους); that, I say, whoever reads it, I am mistaken if he does not straightway conceive in his mind that St. Arsenius deserves a celebrated name among writers. He, so far as I know, wrote nothing: yet he supplied to others matter for writing about himself, by bringing forth various ascetic admonitions, teachings, or apophthegms, which his disciples took care to note down, by themselves or through others. And this very thing either Callistus wished or ought to indicate. I know indeed that λόγος among other things signifies also a book, in which signification the translator here used it. But what then? For, as Rosweyde rightly says in the Prolegomena to the Lives of the Fathers, page 5, certain of those books, in which their deeds are treated, were called decrees, sentences, sometimes discourses, sometimes responses, likewise apophthegms, the deeds of the elders. This therefore does us no harm; otherwise by equal right I shall contend that the ancient dwellers of the desert, the Hilarions, the Macarii, the Sisoi, the Poemens, the Serapions, and others recounted in the Lives of the Fathers, must be numbered in the Catalogues of writers precisely from this, that others consigned to writing what they themselves said—men who deserved the name of writers, or of those who left books, if this be proved from elsewhere.

[52] The author of the Life which we publish, hitherto, as is believed, unpublished, Various Lives of other Saints of the best note, written in Greek, from very ancient monuments, the library of Pierre Séguier, Chancellor of France, has supplied us. Most recently published was the Life of St. Stephen the Sabaite, by far the most esteemed, in volume 3 of this month from page 531; the Acts of the Holy Martyrs of St. Sabas on the 20th of March, from page 167, also of the greatest value. But now from the same store comes forth the Life of St. Arsenius, having deserved a chief place among the monuments of antiquity in this volume; and hitherto, as we certainly believe, unpublished. Nowhere certainly have we found it: so that it is no wonder that by the learned, being unknown, it has not hitherto been desired. In Baronius, at the end of the year 798, Michael, the writer and disciple of the author of this Life, wove together a catalogue of the things which he wrote, no mention being made of that Life.

[53] whence he drew his own, I read indeed in our Possevino, in the Catalogues of the ancient and more celebrated libraries appended to the second volume of the Sacred Apparatus, that among the Greek manuscript codices of the Heidelberg library, page 74, is recounted the Life of Arsenius the Great; but what that may be, and of what age, language, or writer, is not expressed. And among the codices of the Messina library, page 38, is noted a Homily of Theodore Tostridius, on the Life of Arsenius, in folio: whether ours or another's? Finally, page 41, is placed the Life of father Arsenius; but because neither the beginning nor the end of the Life is added, we are made no more certain what it may be; whether it agrees with the others, of which below, or is different; whether it agrees with this our Life, which we publish, or disagrees; which, if you except the prologue and epilogue, consists almost wholly in a collection of the deeds and sayings of the Saint, as they are scatteredly contained in the Lives of the Fathers in Rosweyde, partly in book 3, edited under the name of Rufinus, presbyter of Aquileia (of which his general prologomenon the fifth), partly from book 5, an uncertain Greek author (see the notes, page 561, and the general prolegomenon 7 and 8), Pelagius the translator (general proleg. 14), partly finally from book 7, likewise an uncertain Greek author (general prolegom. 7 and 8), Paschasius the translator, subdeacon of the Holy Roman Church (general prolog. 14).

[54] [is thought the most ancient and the first who collected the deeds of Arsenius from the Lives of the Fathers;] That this biographer drew his own from these fountains, he himself openly indicates, number 1: And indeed it comes to me to marvel, what it is that, after the lives of other blessed men, praiseworthy for the sake of virtue, have been written, shining with the rays of praises, no history of this most blessed one's life has passed to posterity, except that which is read indicated scatteredly by certain holy fathers. Whence I argue that our Life is the most ancient of all, and, as I suspect, the first of all; for if another had preceded this, it would not have escaped the monks of the East, of whose number our biographer was, through three centuries and more, but either the Life itself, if any then already existed, or at least some memory of it, would have flowed to them. It was not seen by Metaphrastes, or whoever is the author of the Life in Surius, who on this day, number 26, writes thus: These are the things of the divine Arsenius… which up to this present day the books of the Fathers had, not in a certain order and series, but placed scatteredly and separately; as here one recorded this, there another that: but collected into one, and which should be and be named the Life of Arsenius, up to this present day we have not yet seen: since not even was his Life found composed by anyone.

[55] And so what the same author in Surius adds in the same place rests on a false supposition: which Metaphrastes did not see, nor Tillemont. And this too perhaps was done according to the mind of Arsenius, that he wished not to be made manifest even after death. For as, while he lived, he was zealous to lie hidden; so also, that when dead he might be unknown, he applied his zeal. For how did he judge himself worthy that his memory should be made, and that he should be openly known, who did not judge himself worthy even of a just burial? Tillemont therefore, trusting too much to those words, although wont to distrust Metaphrastes both elsewhere and in this Life, page 676, does not rightly admit that he is the first who wrote the history of the Life of St. Arsenius. In the work On the Writers of the Order of Preachers, which was published at Paris in the year 1721, volume 2, among other lucubrations of François Combefis, by which he translated various Greek monuments into the Latin tongue, is reported from the latest Supplement of the library of the Greek Fathers, which he edited, volume 1, the Doctrine and Exhortation of the great St. Arsenius. But that author brought forth here nothing new or of worth: since in Surius, in the Life cited several times, number 10, that exhortation had long since been published; of which Tillemont too makes mention, page 689: adding of Combefis: That father says that very many matters are found in it, expressed with great majesty and brevity. And soon he subjoins: But I do not find that he says whence he took it. That a matter already so public and known should here be, as it were, recently unearthed, before unknown and unpublished, and that under the name of St. Arsenius, a thing which perhaps savors of the vein of Metaphrastes alone, or of a like talent, should be obtruded on the learned, I easily pardon Combefis and the author of the praised work, who were about another business. I cannot sufficiently marvel that Tillemont here gropes in darkness of ignorance so gross; who was wholly occupied in this Life in Surius; and which he here repeatedly cites, and in very many places censures, both in his historical collection concerning the Saint and in his notes.

[56] The author of our Life is made manifest by this title, prefixed to it: That its author is St. Theodore the Studite Τοῦ ὁσίου Θεοδώρου ἡγουμένου τῶν Στουδιτῶν εἰς τὸν βίον τοῦ ὁσίου πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἀρσενίου τοῦ Μεγάλου. Of St. Theodore, hegumen of the Studites, on the Life of our holy father Arsenius the Great. Of this monastery see the first volume of February, page 538; and Baronius treats of it at the year 798, numbers 1 and 2. Furthermore St. Theodore the Studite, most illustrious in doing and suffering brave things, flourished at the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 9th, having died in the year 826. See Baronius at that year and the preceding, and volume 3 of July, pages 710 and 711, on the occasion of St. Joseph, archbishop of Thessalonica, his own brother.

Of him we shall treat on the 12th of November with the Roman Martyrology. Nor indeed does it stand in the way that among the writings which the praised Michael recounts as his, no mention is made of that Life; for neither is any made of the discourse on St. Bartholomew the Apostle, translated into Latin by Anastasius the librarian together with the Latin epistle which the same Anastasius inscribed to Aro, prelate of Benevento, and published in the Spicilegium of Dachery, volume 3, from page 13. Nor does Michael even recount the funeral oration which he wrote in praise of St. Plato, his nephew by his sister, and his spiritual son, and his successor in the government of the monastery, and companion of the persecutions which he afterward sustained: which was published by us long ago on the 4th of April from page 366.

[57] is proved By an apostrophe to St. Bartholomew and to St. Plato he concludes his discourses in both places; as also the Life of St. Arsenius, mutilated in some part of it, in an apostrophe to St. Arsenius; which manner, of concluding the Lives of Saints by an apostrophe to them, how much it seems to savor of the style of that time, is an argument the Passion of the Sabaite Martyrs, the Life of St. Stephen the Sabaite, and also of St. Stephen the Younger, monk and martyr, which last Stephen the deacon of the church of Constantinople wove together, and which the Benedictine Monks published among the Greek Analecta at Paris in the year 1688 from page 396. And these things concerning the Life which we print.

[58] besides which, others are at hand. Leo Allatius, in his Diatribe on the writings of the Symeons, page 120, among the Lives which he denies to Metaphrastes, has this, which begins: Ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις, ἐν αἷς ὁ Θεὸς ἀγαθὸς, In the days in which the good God. The copy from codex 1589 (we called it Vatican), written, as is added, in square letters, has an exordium agreeing almost word for word with the one immediately preceding: whence we suspect that the rest likewise agree either wholly or nearly. There is besides at hand another with this exordium: Ἄλλα τῶν σπουδαίων ἄρα καὶ φιλαρέτων ἀνδρῶν αἱ πράξεις, from the July of Metaphrastes, as is noted in the margin; which is kept in the Medicean library of the Most Christian King. Of the Life published under the name of the same author in Surius, we have already noted very many things. But now, whether the oration of the Saint to the monks, in the same place, as we said, number 10, is the same in compendium, or different from that which is noted by Possevino, in the cited volume, page 96, to be numbered among the manuscript codices of Fontainebleau, the royal library in Gaul not far from Paris, we have not ascertained. To these add a Life, from a very ancient manuscript, as is noted, of Claude Dupuy; which nevertheless is indicated to have been written at the end by a somewhat more recent hand. It begins thus: There was a certain man exalted in the palace under the emperor Theodosius, named Arsenius, whose sons, that is, Arcadius and Honorius, he received from baptism. But we refer all to one fountain, namely the Lives of the Fathers; to which the nearer they approach, the purer they will be, and the more cleansed from dross. This fountain certainly our annotations will repeatedly assign, as with pointed finger. Various readings likewise of the Greek text from Cotelier we shall give. Our two codices also, estimable for their aged antiquity, will somewhere be of use to us. Behold now for you the Life, transcribed from the Greek by Papebroch, with 354 added in the margin.

LIFE

By the Author St. Theodore the Studite.

From a very ancient codex of Pierre Séguier, Chancellor of France, collated in various ways. Jean Pien the translator.

Arsenius, Anchorite, on Mount Scetis in Libya (S.)

By St. Theodore the Studite, FROM A MS.

PROLOGUE.

Ἀστὴρ ἀειφανὴς ἡμῖν, οὐκ ἐν τῷ ζωδιακῷ κύκλῳ κατηριθμημένος, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῷ τῆς ἀρετῆς οὐρανῷ ἐστηριγμένος, διὰ τῆς ἐτησίου αὐτοῦ μνήμης σήμερον ἀνατέλλων, φοτὶ ἀΰλωτάτῳ μαρμαρυγὰς ὑπερλάμπρους ἀγαθοεργίας ἐπαφίησι τῇ οἰκουμένῃ. Τίς δέ ἐστιν οὗτος, ὁ φιλάγιον ἄθροισμα; Ὁ ἰσάγγελος Ἀρσένιος, ὁ τὴν ἀρετὴν ἀπρόσιτος, τὸ τῆς ταπεινώσεως ὔψος, τὸ τῆς ἀσκήσεως κλέως, τὸ τῆς ἡσυχίας κράτος, τὸ τῆς κατανύξεως ῥεῖθρον, οὗ καὶ ἡ μνήμη μόνη παράκλησίς ἐστιν εἰς ἀρετῆς ἐπίδοσιν. Καί μοι θαυμάζειν ἔπίησι, πῶς τῶν ἄλλων μακαρίων ἀνδρῶν, παρὰ τῶν κατὰ καιρὸν τῆς ἀρετῆς ἐπαινετῶν, τῶν βίων ἀναγεγραμμένων, καὶ ταῖς τῶν ἐγκωμίων βολίσι καταστραπτότων, τοῦδε τοῦ Τρισμάκαρος ὁ βίος ἀνιστορητος εἰάθη, πλὴν ὅσον σποράδην παρά τινων ὁσίων πατέρων δεδηλωμένος, καίπερ μὴ ἐναπολιμπανόμενος τῆς ἐναρέτου ἐκείνων λαμπροφορίας, ὅτι μὴ, καὶ μᾶλλον τῶν πολλῶν ὑπερλάμπων ταῖς αὐγαῖς τῶν θείων αὐτοῦ ἀνδραγαθημάτων.

[2] Τί οὖν; Συνδιαμείψομεν καὶ ἡμεῖς τοῖς προλαβοῦσι τὸν χρόνον, καὶ οἴσομεν τηλικοῦτον θησαυρὸν ὑπὸ τῆς σιγῆς καλύπτεσθαι; οὔμενουν· ἀλλὰ πειθόμενοι τοῖς ἐπὶ τοῦτο παρορμήσασι πατράσιν, εἰ καὶ ἄμοιροι τοῦ προσήκοντος λόγου, ἡλπικότεστε ἐπίκουρον δέξασθαι τοῦ ἐγχειρήματος αὐτὸν, τὸν εἰς ὑπόθεσιν τοῦ βίου προκείμενον, ἀπαρξόμεθα τοῦ λέγειν, οὐδὲν ξενοδεκτοῦντες παρὰ τὸ ἀληθὲς, ὅσα δὲ ἐκ τῶν περὶ αὐτοῦ περικεκομμένως εἰρημένων ἀναλεγόμενοι, εἰ καὶ διὰ ἀῤῥάφου διηγήσεως, εἰς ὑπόμνησιν φέροντες, καὶ ταῦτα οἱονεὶ συνυφαίνοντες, καὶ ἐκ τούτων ταῖς ἀκολούθαις ἐννοίαις ἔσθ᾽ ὅτε προσθήκην ποιούμενοι καθ᾽ εἷρμον, πειρασόμεθα τὸν βίον ἀπαρτίσασθαι, ἀφοσιούμενοι τὸν πόθον, ὃν περὶ τοῦ Παμμάκαρος ἔχουσιν οἱ φιλάρετοι.

The author marvels at the silence of others concerning St. Arsenius, A star perpetually appearing to us, not numbered in the zodiac circle, but fixed in the heaven of virtue, today rising through his anniversary memory, sends forth to the world the most splendid coruscations of good works with a most immaterial light. But what is that star, O hearers who love holiness? It is Arsenius, equal to the angels, unapproachable in virtue, the height of humility, the glory of ascetic discipline, the strength of quiet, the stream of compunction; whose memory alone is an incitement to progress in virtue. And indeed it comes to me to marvel, what it is that, after the lives of other blessed men, praiseworthy for the sake of virtue, have been written, shining with the rays of praises, no history of this most blessed one's life has passed to posterity, except that which, indicated scatteredly by certain holy fathers, is not inferior to the notable faculty of illustrating matters in which they excel, nay rather outshines many others on account of the divine and manly splendors of the deeds of Arsenius.

[2] and, unwilling to imitate it, girds himself to write his Life. What then? Shall we too change places with those who preceded in time, and suffer so great a treasure to be hidden under silence? By no means: but, incited by the example of the fathers, though destitute of a fitting eloquence; and trusting that he himself, whose life is the subject set before us, will come to the aid of our present endeavor; we shall make a beginning of speaking, adopting nothing foreign and alien from the truth; but collecting whatever has been said summarily of him, and, even if with an incoherent narration, recalling it to memory, and in a manner weaving these things together, adding also, where the matter shall bear it, an addition from the thoughts thence following, by which the matters may cohere, we shall try to complete the life, gratifying the desire with which those who love virtue are held toward this most blessed one.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's country, birth; the secular life exchanged for the solitary at a divine warning; his notable progress in it; his flight from men.

Γένος μὲν Ἀρσενίου, τἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν, καὶ οὐ σπάνιοι οἱ μετέχοντες, ἡ ἀρετὴ· καὶ τὸ ἐκεῖθεν κατάγεσθαι καὶ χαρακτηρίζεσθαι· ἐπειδὴ δὴ τὸ ἀφ᾽ αἵμασιν τοῖς φιλομαθέσιν ἐπιζητεῖται. Ἡ πρώτη τῶν ὑπουρανίων πόλεων τούτῳ πατρὶς, Ῥώμην λέγω τὴν περιβόητον· ἀφ᾽ ἧς τὴν προσηγορίαν οἱ τὸ βασιλικὸν σκῆπτρον κατέχοντες ἐξειλήφασιν· εὐγενῶν γεννητόρων στέλεχος, πλουτῷτε κομώντων καὶ τῇ λοιπῇ τοῦ βίου περιφανείᾳ· οὗ ἐστία μέχρι τοῦ νῦν περίεστιν οὐχ᾽ ὁλόκληρος· πῶς γὰρ ἃν καὶ διεσέσωστο τοσούτοις ἔτεσιν; ἴχνη δὲ καὶ τοσούτῳ μεγέθει διαφέροντα, ὡς ἐν τριακοσίαις κέλλαις διαιροῦσα τοῖς οἰκήτορσι. Ἐξαρκοῦντος τούτου ἐπιδηλῶσαι, ὅσος ἦν περιφανὴς καὶ πολύολβος ὁ Ἀοίδιμος· τοιοῦτός τε ὢν, ὑπῆρχε καὶ τῇ παιδεύσει ὑπέρτερος, ἑλληνικῇ τε καὶ ῥωμαἳκῇ σοφίᾳ θαυμαζόμενος.

[4] Ἐπεὶ οὖν τὸ τηνικαῦτα Θεοδωσίῳ τῷ μεγάλῳ βασιλεύοντι ἐξηκούσθη τὰ περὶ αὐτοῦ, ζητοῦντι παιδευτὴν τοιοῦτον ἐπιστῆσαι υἱοῖς αὐτοῦ Ἀρκαδίῳ καὶ Ὁνωρΐῳ, ὃς εἴη προυργιέστερος ἁπάντων, ἄγεται ὁ Ἀρσένιος τῇ τοῦ κρατοῦντος ῥοπῇ ἐν τῷ Βυζαντίῳ, καὶ παραλαβὼν ἀμφοτέρους τοὺς παῖδας, ἀνῆγεν αὐτοὺς ἔν τε ἤθεσιν καὶ παιδεύμασιν, ἀρίστους ἀποδεικνὺς ἀμφοτέρωθεν. Μέχρι δὲ τοῦ τεσσαρακοστοῦ ἔτους τῆς ἡλικίας αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ παλατίῳ διηνεκῶς, καὶ τὸν φόβον τοῦ Θεοῦ κατὰ διάνοιαν ἔχων, ἐστέναξε καὶ παρεκάλει τὸν Θεὸν μετὰ δακρύων λέγων· Κύριε ὁδήγησόν με, πῶς σωθῷ καὶ δὴ ἐν μιᾷ ὄντος αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ παλατίῳ, ἀκούει θείας φονῆς, λεγούσης αὐτῷ· Ἀρσένιε, εἰ θέλεις σωθῆναι, φεῦγε τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, καὶ σώζῃ.

[5] Τούτων οὖν ἀκούσας ὁ Ἀρσένιος, καὶ ἐπιπολὺ τῷ θείῳ πόθῳ τρωθεὶς, πάσης εὐθὺς καταφρονήσας ἀνθρωπίνης καὶ προσκαίρου αἰνέσεως, καὶ περιφανείας, τρυφῆστε ζωματικῆς, καὶ πάσης ἄλλης φιλοδοξίας, καὶ βασιλείους αὐλὰς εἰς οὐδὲν λογισάμενος, μηδενι μηδὲν εἰρηκὼς ἀποπλέει ἐπὶ τὴν Ἀλεξάνδρειαν, κᾀκεῖθεν ἔρχεται εἰς Σκῆτιν· καὶ εἰσελθὼν ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, προσέρχεται τοῖς κληρικοῖς λέγων· Διὰ τὸν Κύριον, ποιήσατέ με μοναχὸν, καὶ ὁδηγήσατέ με πῶς σωθῶ. Οἱ δὲ τὴν εὐγένειαν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἐκ τοῦ ἤθους, καὶ τοῦ προσώπου, καὶ τῆς συντυχίας στοχασάμενοι, ἐξήταζον αὐτὸν, τίς εἴη καὶ πόθεν. Ἀρνουμένου δὲ αὐτοῦ τὰ πρῶτα, καὶ λέγοντος· Ὅτι ἄνθρωπός εἰμι ξένος καὶ ταπεινὸς, σωθῆναι ζητῶν, μόγις ἠδυνήθησαν πεῖσαι αὐτὸν, θαῤῥῆσαι αὐτοῖς τὰ καθ᾽ ἑαυτόν. Καὶ μαθόντες, εἶπον πρὸς ἀλλήλους· Τίς ἀρά ἐστιν, ὁ ὀφείλων τοῦτον παραλαβεῖν καὶ ὁδηγῆσαι εἰς τὴν μοναδικὴν πολιτείαν· καὶ δὴ βουλευσαμένων αὐτῶν, συνεῖδον ἀπενεγκεῖν αὐτὸν τῷ ἀββᾷ Ἰωάννῃ τῷ Κολοβῷ. Καὶ λαβόντες αὐτὸν μεθ᾽ ἑαυτῶν, ἀπῆλθον πρὸς τὸν γέροντα· καὶ μετὰ τὸ ποιῆσαι αὐτοὺς εὐχὴν, ἐλάλησαν αὐτῷ περὶ Ἀρσενίου.

[6] Καὶ ἐν τῷ συντυγχάνειν αὐτοὺς, καταλαβούσης τῆς ἐννάτης ὥρας, λέγει τοῖς κληρικοῖς ὁ γέρων· Δεῦτε, ποιήσωμεν ἀγάπην, καὶ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ Κυρίου γενέσθω. Καὶ καθεσθεὶς ὁ ἀββᾶς Ἰωάννης μετὰ τῶν κληρικῶν, ἤρξαντο ἐσθίειν, ἐάσαντες τὸν Ἀρσένιον ἱστάμενον. Ῥίπτει οὖν πακαμὰν εἰς τὴν γήν ὁ ἀββᾶς Ἰωάννης, καὶ λεγει τῷ Ἀρσενίῳ· Φάγε, ἐὰν θέλῃς. Ὁ δὲ κλίνας ἑαυτὸν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, ἀπῆλθε περιπατῶν ταῖς χερσὶ καὶ τοῖς ποσὶν, ὅπου ἦν ὁ παξαμάς· καὶ ἔφαγεν αὐτὸν, ὡς ἔκειτο εἰς τὴν γῆν. Καὶ ἰδὼν ὁ γέρων, λέγει τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς· Ὑπάγετε μετὰ καλοῦ, καὶ εὔξασθε ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν· οὕτως γὰρ γινώσκετε, ὅτι δόκιμον ἔχει ποιῆσαι μοναχόν. Ἠρώτησαν οὖν οἱ κληρικοὶ τὸν Ἀρσένιον καθ᾽ ἑαυτοῖς, λέγοντες αὐτῷ. Ποίησον ἀγάπην, ἀδελφὲ, δια τὸν Κύριον, καὶ εἰπὲ ἡμῖν, ποῖον λογισμὸν ἔσχες ἐσθίων τὸν παξαμάν; Καί λέγει αὐτοῖς· Ἐλογισάμην πρὸς ἐμαυτόν· Ὅτι ὡς κυνί σοι ἔῤῥιψαν τὸν ἄρτον, ὡς κύων φάγε αὐτόν. Καὶ ἐδόξασαν τὸν Θεόν. Χρόνον οὖν ὀλίγον μείνας μετὰ

τοῦ ἀββᾶ Ἰωάννου ὁ Ἀρσένιος, καὶ μαθὼν πᾶσαν τὴν μοναχικὴν κατάστασιν, ἀπελύθη παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἀπελθεῖν καὶ καθίσαι κατὰ μόνας· καὶ ἔμεινεν ἀγωνιζόμενος ἐν Κυρίῳ, ὥστε πολλοὺς τῶν κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον μεγάλων γερόντων ὐπερβῆναι τοῖς πόνοις, τῇ τε καρτερίᾳ, καὶ τῇ ὑπομονῇ τῶν ἀσκητικῶν ἀγόνων. Ἀναχωρήσας οὖν ἐν τῷ ἡσύχαστικῷ βίῳ, πάλιν ηὔξατο τῷ θεῷ λέγων· Κύριε, ὁδήγησόν με, πῶς σωθῶ· καὶ ἤκουσε φωνῆς λεγούσης· Ἀρσένιε, φεῦγε, σιώπα, ἡσύχαζε· αὐταὶ γάρ εἰσιν αἱ ῥίζαι τῆς ἀναμαρτησίας.

[7] Θεόθεν οὖν δεξάμενος τὸ τοιοῦτον πρόσταγμα, μετατίθησιν ὅλην τὴν διάθεσιν πρὸς οὐρανὸν ὁ Ἀρσένιος, ἐν γῇ μὲν διατρίβων τῷ σώματι, τῇ δὲ καρδιᾴ ταῖς ἄνω δυνάμεσι συμπεριπολῶν· ἐφ᾽ ὃ ἀγόμενον αὐτόν τις τῶν πατέρων τοὔνομα Μάρκος, οὔτω φιλησυχτοῦντά φησι πρὸς αὐτόν· Διὰ τί φεύγεις ἡμᾶς, πάτερ; Ὁ δὲ Γέρων πρὸς αὐτόν· Ὁ Θεὸς οἶδεν, ὅτι ἀγαπῶ ὑμᾶς· ἀλλ᾽ οὐ δύναμαι εἶναι μετὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ μετὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων· αἱ ἄνω χιλιάδες καὶ μυριάδες ἓν θέλημα ἔχουσιν· οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι πολλὰ θελήματα ἔχουσιν. Οὐ δύναμαι οὖν ἀφῆναι τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ σχολάζειν ἀνθρώποις. Καὶ γοῦν πρὸς σαφεστέραν αὐτοῦ δήλωσιν τῆς ἡσυχίας, καὶ τοῦτο ῥητέον ἀξιομνημόνευτον ὄν.

[8] Παραβαλόντος οὖν αὐτοῦ εἰς τόπον τινὰ, ἐπείπερ ἦσαν ἐκεῖ κάλαμοι, κενούμενοι ὑπὸ ἀνέμου, εἶπεν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ὁ Ἀρσένιος· Τί ἐστιν ὁ σεισμὸς οὗτος; Οἱ δέ φασι· Κάλαμοί εἰσι, πάτερ. Λέγει οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Γέρων· Φύσει ἐὰν κάθηταί τις ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ, ἀκούσει δε φωνὴν στρουθίου, οὐκ ἔχει ἡ καρδία τὴν αὐτοῦ [] ἡσυχίαν· πόσῳ γε μᾶλλον ὑμεῖς, ἔχοντες τὸν σεισμὸν τοῦτον []. Πῶς δὲ οὐκ ἔμελλεν ὁ οὕτως ἡρεμῶν, καὶ τὴν ἔκστασιν τῆν ἐκ τῶν κάτω θορύβων, περιδονήσεως ἀκλόνητον ἔχων πρὸς Θεὸν, μὴ οὐχὶ καὶ τὸ ἀσύμφυρτον φιλεῖν τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης διατριβῆς, ἀπρόοδόν τε ἔχειν τὴν ἀπὸ γλώσσης ὁμιλίαν, ὅτι μὴ πάση ἀνάγκη, δηλώσει δὲ ὁ λόγος.

[9] Ποτὲ παραβαλὼν αὐτῷ Θεόφιλος, ὁ ἀρχιεπίσκοπος Ἀλεξανδρείας, μετὰ ἄρχοντός τινος, ἡρώτα τὸν Γέροντα, ἀκοῦσαι παρὰ αὐτοῦ λόγον. Μικρὸν δὲ σιωπήσας ὁ Γέρων, ἀπεκρίνατο πρὸς αὐτόν. Καὶ ἐὰν ὑμῖν εἴπω, φυλάσσετε; Οἱ δὲ συνέθεντο. Εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Γέρων· Ὅπου ἐὰν ἀκούσητε Ἀρσένιον, μὴ πλησιάσητε. Ἄλλοτε πάλιν βουληθεὶς ὁ ἀρχιεπίσκοπος παραβαλεῖν αὐτῷ, ἀπέστειλε πρῶτον εἰδέναι εἰ ἀνοίγοι ὁ Γέρων. Καὶ δηλοῖ αὐτῷ λέγων· Ἐὰν ἔλθῃς, ἀνοίγω, καὶ ἐάν σοι ἀνοίξω, πᾶσιν ἀνοίγῳ· καὶ τότε οὐκ ἔτι καθέζομαι ὧδε. Ταῦτα ἀκούσας ὁ ἀρχιεπίσκοπος, εἶπεν· Εἰ διῶξαι αὐτὸν ἀπέρχομαι, οὐκ ἔτι ἀπέρχομαι πρὸς αὐτόν. Καὶ μὴν καί τινος τῶν πατέρων ἐλθόντος πρὸς αὐτὸν, καὶ κρούσαντος τὴν θύραν, ἀνέῳξεν ὁ Ἀρσένιος, νομίζων ὅτι ὁ διακονητὴς αὐτοῦ ἐστι· καὶ ὡς εἶδεν αὐτὸν ἕτερον ὄντα, ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον. Ὁ δὲ λέγει αὐτῷ· Ἀνάστα ἀββᾶ, ἵνα σε ἀσπάσωμαι, Ἔφη οὖν ὁ Γέρων· Οὐκ ἐγείρομαι, ἐὰν μὴ ἀναχωρήσῃς. Καὶ ἐπὶ πολὺ παρακληθεὶς, οὐκ ἀνέστη, ἕως ἀνεχώρησεν ἐκεῖνος. Οὐχ, ὡς ἄν τις οἰηθείη, παραλύων τὸν δεσμὸν τῆς ἀγάπης, ἧς ὅτι καὶ μάλιστα ἐραστὴς εἴη, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα μὴ διακοπείη τῆς κρείττονος ἐργασίας.

[10] Ἐπεὶ καί τινες ἀδελφοὶ μέλλοντες ὑπάγειν εἰς Θηβαΐδα διὰ λινάρια, λέγουσι πρὸς ἑαυτούς· Δι᾽ ἀφορμῆς εἴδωμεν καὶ τὸν ἀββᾶν Ἀρσένιον. Εἰσῆλθεν οὖν ὁ ἀββᾶς Ἀλέξανδρος, καὶ λέγει τῷ Γέροντι· Ἀδελφοὶ ἀπὸ Ἀλεξανδρείας ἐλθόντες θέλουσί σε ἰδεῖν. Ὁ δὲ Γέρων ἔφῃ· Ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἤκασι; Καὶ μαθὼν ὅτι εἰς Θηβαΐδα ὑπάγουσιν, λέγει ὁ Γέρων· Φύσει οὐ βλέπουσι τὸ πρόσωπον Ἀρσενίου, ὅτι δι᾽ ἐμὲ οὐκ ἦλθον. Ἀνάπαυσον οὖν αὐτοὺς, καὶ ἀπόλυσον ἐν εἰρήνῃ, εἰπὼν αὐτοῖς· Ὄτι ὁ Γέρων οὐ δύναται ἀπαντῆσαι. Ἄλλοτε πάλιν ἦλθον πρὸς αὐτὸν γέροντες, καὶ πολλὰ παρεκάλεσαν, ἵνα συντύχωσιν, αὐτῷ· καὶ παρεκάλουν αὐτὸν, εἰπεῖν αὐτοῖς λόγον ἐπὶ τῶν ἡσυχαζόντων, καὶ μηδενὶ ἀπαντώντων. Λέγει οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Γέρων· Ὄταν ἡ παρθένος ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ τοῦ πατρὸς ᾖ, πολλοὶ θέλουσιν αὐτὴν μνηστευθῆναι· ἐπὰν δὲ προέλθῃ, οὐχ᾽ οὕτως ἔχει τιμὴν, ὅτε ἦν κεκρυμμένη. Οὕτω καὶ τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς· ἀπότε [*] δημοσιεύεται, οὐ πᾶσιν ἀρέσκειν δύναται· μέτρον οὖν ἡμῖν ὑποδείκνυται ἐνταῦθα τῆς πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς ἀπαντήσεως· οὐ γὰρ πάντοτε πάντως, ἵνα μὴ τὸ πάρεργον τοῦ ἔργου προτιμώμενοι ζημιοῦμεν ἑαυτοὺς μὴ αἰσθανόμενοι· ἀλλ᾽ οἷον καὶ τοῦτο, ἐνταῦθα ὄφελον παραζευχθῆναι.

[11] Ἀδελφός τις ἐλθὼν εἰς Σκῆτιν, παρεκάλει τοὺς κληρικοὺς, λέγων· Συντυχεῖν θελω τῷ ἀββᾷ Ἀρσενίῳ. Εἶπον οὖν αὐτῷ. Ἀναπαύου μικρὸν, καὶ βλέπεις αὐτόν. Ὁ δὲ ἔφη· Οὐ γεύομαί τινος, ἐὰν μὴ αὐτῷ ἀπαντήσω. Ἔπεμψαν οὖν μετὰ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ καταστῆσαι αὐτὸν, ὅτι μακρὰν ἦν ἡ κέλλα αὐτοῦ· καὶ κρούσαντες τὴν θύραν, εἰσῆλθον· καὶ ἀσπασάμενοι τὸν Γέροντα ἐκάθισαν σιωπῶντες. Εἶπεν οὖν ὁ ἀδελφὸς ὁ τῆς ἐκκλησίας· Ἐγείρομαι, ὑπάγω, εὔξασθε ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ. Ὁ δὲ ξένος ἀδελφὸς, μὴ εὑρὼν παῤῥησίαν πρὸς τὸν Γέροντα, εἶπεν τῷ ἀδελφῷ· Ἔρχομαι κᾀγὼ μετά σου. Καὶ ἐξῆλθον ὁμοῦ. Παρεκάλεσεν οὖν αὐτὸν, λέγων· Λάβέ με καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἀββᾶν Μωσῆν τῶν ἀπὸ λῃστῶν. Καὶ ἐλθόντων αὐτῶν πρὸς αὐτὸν, ἐδέξατο αὐτὸν μετὰ χαρᾶς, καὶ φιλοξενίσας [] ἀπέλυσεν. Καὶ λέγει ὁ ἐνεγκὼν τὸν ἕτερον ἀδελφός· Ἰδοὺ ἀπήνεγκά σε πρὸς τὸν ξενικὸν μοναχὸν καὶ πρὸς τὸν Αἰγύπτιον· τίς ἐκ τῶν δύο ἤρεσέ σοι; Λέγει ὁ ἀδελφὸς· Ὁ Αἰγύπτιος ἤρεσέ μοι. Ἀκούσας δέ τις τῶν πατέρων ταῦτα, ηὔξατο τῷ Θεῷ, λέγων· Κύριε, δεῖξόν μοι τὸ πράγμα τοῦτο· ὅτι ὃς μὲν φεύγει διὰ τὸ ὄνομά σου, ὃς δὲ ἐναγκαλίζεται διὰ τὸ ὄνομά σου. Καὶ ἐδείχθη αὐτῷ δύο πλοῖα μεγάλα· καὶ θεωρεῖ τὸν ἀββᾶν Ἀρσένιον καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ πλέοντες ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ εἰς ἓν []· καὶ ὁ ἀββᾶς Μωσῆς καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ Θεοῦ πλέοντες εἰς ἓν [*], καὶ ἐψώμιζον αὐτὸν μελικηρίδας· οὔτω δὲ ὑποχωρῶν τὰς τῶν ἀνδρῶν ὁμιλίας ἐνεδίδου, τὰς τῶν γυναικῶν ὁτιοῦν οὐδανῶς· δριμὺς γὰρ ἦν ὅλος καὶ ἀπαῤῥησίαστος, ἐροτικὸς πρὸς Θεὸν διακείμενος.

[12] Ἐλθοῦσα τοιγαροῦν εἰς τὸν Κάνοπον Ἀλεξανδρείας μιὰ συγκλητικὴ ἀπὸ Ῥώμης, πλουσία σφόδρα, καὶ φοβουμένη τὸν Θεὸν, ποθοῦσα ἰδεῖν αὐτόν. Ὑπεδέξατο αὐτὴν ὁ Θεόφιλος ὁ ἀρχιεπίσκοπος, καὶ παρεκάλεσεν αὐτὸν, ἵνα πείσῃ τὸν Γέροντα δέξασθαι αὐτήν. Καὶ ἐλθὼν ὁ ἀρχιεπίσκοπος πρὸς αὐτὸν, παρεκάλει δέξασθαι αὐτήν. Ὁ δὲ Γέρων οὐ κατεδέξατο ἀπαντῆσαι. Ὡς οὖν ἀνηγγέλη αὐτῇ ταῦτα, κελεύει στρωθῆναι τὰ κτήνη αὐτῆς, λέγουσα· Πιστεύω τῷ Θεῷ ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν· οὐ γὰρ ἄνθρωπον ἦλθον ἰδεῖν· εἰσὶ γὰρ καὶ ἐν τῇ πόλει ἡμῶν πολλοὶ ἄνθρωποι· ἀλλὰ προφήτην ἦλθον ἰδεῖν. Καὶ ὡς ἔφθασε περὶ τὴν κέλλαν τοῦ Γέροντος, κατ᾽ οἰκονομίαν Θεοῦ ηὐκαίρησεν ἔξω τῆς κέλλης ὁ Γέρων· καὶ ἰδοῦσα αὐτὸν, προσέπεσε τοῖς ποσὶν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἤγειρεν αὐτὴν μετ᾽ ὀργῆς, καὶ προσέσχεν αὐτῇ λέγων· Εἰ τὸ πρόσωπόν μου θέλεις ἰδεῖν, ἰδοὺ, βλέπε. Ἡ δὲ ἀπὸ αἰσχύνης οὐ κατενοήσε τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ. Καὶ λέγει αὐτῇ· Οὐκ ἤκουσας τὰ ἔργα μου; ταῦτα βλέπειν ἀναγκαῖον. Πῶς δὲ καὶ ἐτόλμησας ποιῆσαι τοσοῦτον πλοῦν; Οὐκ οἶδας, ὅτι γυνὴ εἶ, καὶ οὐκ ὀφείλεις προσέρχεσθαι πώποτε; ἢ ἵνα ἀπέλθῃς εἰς Ῥώμην, καὶ εἴπῃς ταῖς γυναιξὶν, ὅτι ἑώρακα Ἀρσένιον, καὶ ποιήσουσι τὴν θάλασσαν ὁδὸν, γυναικῶν ἐρχομένων πρός με; Ἡ δὲ εἶπεν· Ἐὰν θέλῃ Κύριος, οὐκ ἀφῶ τινα ἐλθεῖν ὧδε ἀλλ᾽ εὔχου ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ, καὶ μνημόνευέ μου διαπαντός. Ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς, εἶπεν αὐτῇ. Εὔχομαι τῷ Θεῷ, ἵνα ἐξαλειφθῇ τὸ μνημόσυνόν σου ἐκ τῆς διανοίας μου. Ταῦτα ἀκούσασα, ἐξῆλθεν τεταραγμένη. Καὶ ὡς ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν πόλιν, ἀπὸ λύπης ἔβαλε πυρέττειν. Καί ἀνηγγέλη τῷ πάπᾳ, ὥτι ἀσθενεῖ. Καὶ ἐλθὼν πρὸς αὐτὴν, παρεκάλει μαθεῖν τί ἐστιν, ὃ ἔχει. Ἡ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτῷ. Εἶθε μὴ ἀπήντησα ὧδε· εἶπα γὰρ τῷ Γέροντι· Μνημόνευέ μου· καὶ εἶπέ μοι· Ὄτι εὔχομαι τῷ Θεῷ, ἵνα ἐξαλειφθῇ τὸ μνημόσυνόν σου ἐκ τῆς διανοΐας μου. Καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποθνήσκω ἐκ τῆς λύπης. Καὶ λέγει αὐτῇ ὁ ἀρχιεπίσκοπος. Οὐκ οἶδας, ὅτι γυνὴ εἶ, καὶ ὁ ἐχθρὸς διάβολος διὰ τῶν γυναικῶν πολεμεῖ τοὺς Ἁγίους; Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο εἶπεν ὁ Γέρων· περὶ γὰρ τῆς ψυχῆς σου εὔχεται διαπαντός. Καὶ οὕτως ἐθεραπεύθη ὁ λογισμὸς αὐτῆς, καὶ ἀπῆλθε μετὰ χαρᾶς εἰς τὰ ἴδια. Ἡ μὲν οὖν ἡσυχία, καὶ ἡ ἀπάντησις τοιαύτη τοῦ Ἀρσενίου.

The Saint's country; birth; wisdom: The lineage of Arsenius, to say what the truth is, and those who share in it are not rare, was virtue; and to be derived and characterized from it; since among the studious it is the descent from ancestry that is first inquired into. His country was the chief of the cities that are under heaven, Rome, I say, the most renowned, from which those who wield the imperial scepter took their appellation. He was a shoot of noble parents, flourishing in wealth and in the rest of the splendor of life. His household even to this present time does not remain entire (for by what means could it have been preserved through so many years?) but its traces, excelling in so great a magnitude, that it divides among its inhabitants as it were into thirty cells ^a. And this suffices to show how illustrious and how greatly blessed was that memorable Man; and, being such, he was also superior in learning, admirable in Greek and Roman wisdom alike.

[4] Since therefore his fame was then brought to the ears of the great emperor Theodosius, [the education of Arcadius and Honorius in the court of Theodosius: whence, warned by a divine voice,] who was seeking to set over his sons Arcadius and Honorius such a master, who would do this with greater worth than all, Arsenius, at the will of the ruler, betook himself to Byzantium, and, taking both boys, formed them in manners and disciplines, showing them the best in both. Up to the fortieth year of his age he was constantly in the court ^b; and, having the fear of God in his mind, he groaned, and called upon God with tears, saying: Lord, show me the way in which I may be saved. And indeed, while one day he was in the court, he heard a divine voice, which said to him: Arsenius, if you wish to be saved, flee men, and you will be saved ^c.

[5] When therefore Arsenius had heard these things, already long since wounded by divine desire, [he flees to Alexandria, thence to Scetis, desiring to be numbered among the monks;] soon despising all human and transient praise, and splendor, and bodily luxury, and every other love of glory, and reckoning the courts of the emperors as nothing, having said nothing to anyone, he sails to Alexandria; and thence

he comes to Scetis; and, having entered the church, he approaches the clergy ^d, saying: For the Lord's sake, make me a monk, and show me the way in which I may be saved. But they, conjecturing the man's nobility from his manners, countenance, and speech, inquired of him who and whence he was. And when at first he refused, and said: I am a stranger and lowly man, who seek to be saved; scarcely at last could they persuade him confidently to set forth to them what pertained to himself. Being informed of which, they said one to another: Who is he who ought to receive this man, and lead him to the monastic institute? And, counsel being taken, it seemed good to conduct him to abbot John Colobus the Short ^e. And taking him with them, they went to the old man; and, prayers being performed, they spoke with him concerning Arsenius.

[6] And when, during their conversation, the ninth hour had now come, [and, obtaining his wish, having given a specimen of the monastic life, he excels in it,] the old man says to the clergy: Come, let us make an agape ^f, and let the will of the Lord be done. And abbot John, sitting down with the clergy, they began to eat, leaving Arsenius standing. Abbot John therefore throws a paxamas ^g onto the ground, and says to Arsenius: Eat, if you will. But he, bending himself to the ground, went thither, walking on hands and feet, to where the paxamas was; and, as it lay on the ground, he ate it. And the old man, beholding this, says to the brethren: Depart with good, and pray for us: for thus you know that he is approved to become a monk. The clergy therefore questioned Arsenius among themselves, saying to him: Make an agape, brother, for the Lord's sake; and tell us, what thought you had when you were eating the paxamas? To whom he said: I reasoned within myself: as they threw the bread to you like a dog, eat it like a dog. And they glorified God. When therefore Arsenius had stayed a short time with abbot John, and had been taught the whole manner of the monastic life, he departed from him, that he might withdraw and give himself to himself alone. And he persevered, striving with all his might in the Lord so far, that he surpassed the great old men of that time in labors, constancy, and endurance of the ascetic contests. After he had withdrawn to the hesychastic ^h life, again he prayed to God, saying: Lord, show me the way in which I may be saved. And he heard a voice saying: Arsenius, flee, be silent, be quiet: for these are the roots by which you may become free from sin ⁱ.

[7] practicing the strictest solitude and quiet, Having therefore received this command from God, Arsenius transfers his whole affection to heaven, dwelling indeed on earth in body, but with his heart consorting familiarly with the powers above. As he was led to this, a certain one of the fathers, named Mark ^k, thus addresses him, loving quiet as he did: Why do you flee us, father? To whom the old man: God knows that I love you: but I cannot be with men and with God. The heavenly thousands and myriads have one will; but men have many wills: I cannot therefore forsake God and give my leisure to men ^l. But now, that it may be more clearly established concerning his solitary quiet, that too must be said, being worthy of memory.

[8] lacking even the lightest sound, When he had come to a certain place (since there were reeds there stirred by the wind), thus Arsenius addresses the brethren: What is this shaking? They answer: They are reeds, father. The old man subjoins: Truly if anyone sits in solitary quiet, and hears the voice of a little bird, his heart no longer has the same quiet; how much more you, having this shaking ^m. But how should not he, being thus at rest, and having his ecstasy toward God unshaken by any whirl from the tumults below, love also the unmingled state of human converse, and keep the speech from the tongue without going forth, except when utter necessity compelled otherwise, the discourse will show.

[9] and from the conversations of men Once Theophilus ⁿ, archbishop of Alexandria, came to him with one of the chief men ^o, and asked the old man that he might hear from him a discourse. But the old man, after a little silence, gave him this answer: And if I tell you, will you keep it? They agreed to it [p]. The old man therefore said to them: Wherever you hear that Arsenius dwells, do not approach. Another time again the archbishop, wishing to meet him, sent first to see whether the old man would open. And he signifies to him, saying: If you come, I will open, but if I open to you, I will open to all, and then I will no longer remain here. Hearing these things, the archbishop said: If I go to drive him away, I will no longer go to him. And indeed, when a certain one of the fathers [q] came to him, and knocked at the door, Arsenius opened, thinking it was his attendant; and when he saw him to be another, he fell on his face. But he says to him: Rise, father, that I may salute you. The old man therefore said: I will not rise unless you withdraw. And, though long entreated, he did not rise until that one had withdrawn. Not, as one might think, loosing the bond of charity, of which he was most loving, but that he might not be called away even the least bit from the exercise of perfection.

[10] withdrawing himself utterly. Some brethren [r], about to go into the Thebaid to procure flaxen threads [s], said among themselves: On this occasion let us also see abbot Arsenius [t]. Abbot Alexander [u] therefore entered, and says to the old man: Brethren coming from Alexandria wish to see you. To whom the old man: Have they come for this very purpose? And, being informed that they were going into the Thebaid, the old man says: Truly they shall not behold the face of Arsenius; for they did not come on my account. [x] Refresh them therefore, and dismiss them in peace, saying to them: The old man cannot meet you. Another time again old men came to him, and much entreated that they might converse with him [y]; and they asked him to bring forth to them some discourse concerning the solitaries who are enclosed, and meet no one [z]. Then the old man: As long as a virgin dwells in her father's house, many wish to become her suitors: but when she has come forth [aa], she does not have that honor which she had when she lay hidden. So it is with the things of the soul: from the time that they are made public, they cannot please all. A measure therefore is here shown us of meeting with the brethren: for not always altogether, lest, preferring what is accessory to the work above the work itself, we bring loss upon ourselves gradually without perceiving it. But of what sort that matter is, it may profit to add here.

[11] A certain brother, who had come to Scetis, asked the clergy, saying: [The flight of St. Arsenius from men, and the affability of St. Moses, converted from a robber, are approved by a vision.] I desire to converse with abbot Arsenius. To whom they said: Rest a little, and you will see him. But he said: I will taste nothing unless I meet him. They therefore sent someone with the brother to conduct him, because his cell was far off. And, the door being knocked, they entered; and, having saluted the old man, they sat in silence. The brother of the church therefore said: I rise, I depart, pray for me. But the stranger brother, not finding freedom to converse with the old man, said to the brother: I too come with you. And they went out together. He then entreated him, saying: Take me also to abbot Moses, converted from robbers [bb]. To whom after they had come, he received him with joy, and, having shown the offices of hospitality, dismissed him. Then he who had led the other thus begins: Behold, I led you to Arsenius the foreign monk, and to the Egyptian: which of the two pleased you more? To whom the brother: The Egyptian pleased me. A certain one of the fathers, hearing these things, prayed to God, saying: Lord, show me this matter. For the one flees for the sake of your name, but the other receives into his arms for the sake of your name. And there were shown him two great ships; and in the one he beholds abbot Arsenius and the Spirit of God sailing in quiet; and abbot Moses and the angels of God were sailing in the other, putting particles of honeycomb into his mouth [cc]. Thus he, withdrawing, yielded a little to the approach of men; but of women not even the least: for he was wholly austere, and averse from freer speech, being disposed in love toward God.

[12] A certain senatorial Roman woman therefore came to Canopus of Alexandria, very rich and fearing God, desiring to see St. Arsenius. Theophilus the archbishop received her; whom she asked to persuade the old man to admit her. And after the archbishop had come to him, he asked that he would admit her. But the old man refused her a conversation. When these things had been announced to her, she orders her beasts to be saddled, saying: I trust in God that I shall see him: for I did not come to see a man (for there are many men in our city), but I came to see a prophet. And when she reached the cell of the old man, God so disposing, the old man was at leisure outside the cell: whom, beholding, she fell at his feet; and he raised her up with anger [*], and, fixing his gaze on her, said: If you wish to see my face, behold, look. But she, for shame, did not contemplate his face. And he says to her: Have you not heard of my deeds? These it is necessary to consider. But how also did you dare to make so great a voyage? Do you not know that you are a woman, and that you ought never to go forth? Or did you perhaps come here that you might go to Rome, and say to the women: I have seen Arsenius; and the women make the sea a highway, coming to me? She answered: If the Lord please, I will permit no one to come here. But pray for me, and have memory of me always. And he answering said to her: I pray God that the memory of you may be blotted out from my mind. When she had heard these things, she went out troubled. And when she came to the city, from sadness she fell to being feverish: and it was announced to the pope [dd] that she was sick; who, coming to her, asked to learn what it was that she had. She replied: Would that I had never come here! for I said to the old man: Have memory of me; and he answered: I pray God that the memory of you may be blotted out from my mind. And behold, I am dying of sadness. Again the archbishop: Do you not know that you are a woman, and that the enemy the devil through women wars against the Saints? And for this reason the old man said it: for concerning your soul he prays continually. And thus her mind was healed; and she departed with joy to her own home [ee]. And such indeed was the withdrawal and meeting of Arsenius.

ANNOTATIONS.

of June, page 356, number 56, narrates his withdrawal into the Dobrów desert, as if the Saint had heard the voice glided down from heaven to Arsenius in his calling: Arsenius, flee the tumult, and you will be saved.

p. Lives of the Fathers, page 565: they promised to keep it. Cotelier: συνέθεντο φυλάττειν.

q. The Lives of the Fathers, book 3, page 528, read: When a certain one of the brethren had come. This little history is placed in Cotelier, page 368, up to "had withdrawn" inclusively.

r. Cotelier prefixes, page 360: Abbot Daniel related that certain brethren, etc.

s. Λινάριον, flax: λινάρια, nets or flaxen threads (in French filets). Cotelier renders it flaxen thread. The Lives of the Fathers, book 3, page 528, flax; as also book 7, chapter 34, number 2. In Surius, number 16, is read: For some business of his own.

t. The Lives of the Fathers here add: And when they had come to his cave.

u. Cotelier also Alexander: in the Lives of the Fathers it is marked Daniel.

x. Cotelier differs a little. But the Lives of the Fathers add this clause: Permit me to look at heaven, and let them return: for they shall not see my face.

y. Added in Cotelier, page 372: But he opened the door.

z. The hesychastic life is most tenacious of silence, yet not so, that at least in the centuries next after this Saint, it excluded disciples and any others coming for the sake of exhortation or conversation at all times; as may be seen in the annotations to the Life of St. Stephen the Sabaite alleged above. Certainly the author of the Life, number 184, records of that Saint: For five years then he gave himself as a solitary to Christ (ἡσύχασεν) in his cell, never going out except on the days of the Sabbath and the Lord's days, inscribing during that time on the front of his cell: Pardon me for the Lord's sake, my lord fathers, and let no one be troublesome to me in the hesychasterion except on the Sabbath and the Lord's day.

aa. Cotelier, page 372: But when she has taken a husband, she pleases not all, but some indeed despise her, others praise her.

bb. Of Moses converted from a robber the preliminary Commentary treats, number 28.

cc. This deed is narrated in the Lives of the Fathers, book 7, chapter 18, number 2, and in Cotelier, page 368.

dd. Τῷ πάπᾳ. Thus the Patriarch of Alexandria was called. See, if you please, the Greek Glossary of Cangius. Cotelier has τῷ μακαρίῳ Θεοφίλῳ τῷ ἀρχιεπισκόπῳ.

ee. Lives of the Fathers, book 3, page 511, and book 5, little book 2, number 7: and in Cotelier, page 360.

* Read with Cotelier αὐτὴν.

* In the same place τῶν καλάμων τούτων.

* Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 2: I will never go to a holy man.

* Lives of the Fathers: with haste: with indignation.

* ἀφ᾽ ὅτε

* Cotelier φιλοφρονήσας αὐτοὺς

* Cotelier ἕνα.

* Cotelier ἕνα.

CHAPTER II.

The gift of prayer and of tears; vigils, teachings, the labor of the hands; mortification, poverty; the dismissal and admission of his disciples; the return to Troe.

Εὐχῆς δὲ καὶ ταπεινοφροσύνης χάρισι τίς οὕτως ἐκεκόσμητο; Καί τις μὲν μάρτυς ὁ ἀδελφὸς ἐκεῖνος, ὁ παραβαλὼν ἐν τῷ κελλίῳ τοῦ Γέροντος, ὃς προσχὼν διὰ τῆς θυρίδος ἔνδον, θεωρεῖ τὸν Γέροντα ὅλον ὡς πῦρ. Ἦν καὶ ἄξιος ὁ ἀδελφὸς τοῦ ἰδεῖν. Καὶ ὡς ἔκρουσεν, ἐξῆλθεν ὁ Γέρων· καὶ ἰδὼν τὸν ἀδελφὸν ἔκθαμβον, λέγει αὐτῷ· Ἔχεις πολλὴν ὥραν κρούων; Μὴ τίποτε εἶδες ὧδε; Καὶ εἶπεν· Οὐχί. Καὶ λαλήσας αὐτῷ, ἀπέλυσεν. Τὶς δὲ ὁ εἰπὼν, ὅτι ὥσπερ οὐδεὶς τοῦ παλατίου ἐφόρει βελτίονα αὐτοῦ ἐσθῆτα ἐν τοῖς βασιλείοις διάγων, ὥτως οὔδε ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τῆς Σκήτιως προσερχόμενος εὐτελεστέραν αὐτοῦ ἄλλος ἐφόρησεν. Ὅτε καὶ ἐδόθη ποτὲ εἰς Σκῆτιν πρὸς ὀλίγα ἰσχάδια, καὶ ὡς μηδὲν ὄντα οὐκ ἀπέστειλεν τῷ Ἀρσενίῳ, ὡς ἵνα μὴ ὕβριν πάθῃ. Ὁ δὲ Γέρων ἀκούσας, οὐκ ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν σύναξιν, λέγων· Ἠφορίσατέ μοι [*] τοῦ μὴ δοῦναί μοι τὴν εὐλογίαν, ἣν ἔπεμψεν ὁ Θεὸς τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς, ἣν οὔκ εἰμι ἄξιος λαβεῖν. Καὶ ἤκουσαν πάντες, καὶ ὠφελήθησαν εἰς τὴν ταπείνοσιν τοῦ Γέροντος. καὶ ἀπελθὼν ὁ πρεσβύτερος ἤγαγεν αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν σύναξιν μετὰ χαρᾶς.

[14] Τὸ δὲ διερωτᾷν αὐτὸν, καὶ μὴ στοιχεῖν ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ σκοπῷ, οὐ ταπεινώσεως ἔργον; καίπερ γνώσει, καὶ συνέσει καὶ σοφίᾳ κατηγλαἳσμένος. Τοίνυν πυνθανόμενον αὐτόν ποτέ τινα Αἰγύπτιον περὶ τῶν ἰδίων λογισμῶν, ἰδὼν αὐτὸν ἕτερος τῶν ἀδελφῶν, εἶπεν· Ἀββᾶ Ἀρσένιε πῶς τοσαύτην παίδευσιν ῥωμαἳκὴν καὶ ἑλληνικὴν ἐπιστάμενος, τοῦτον τὸν ἀγροῖκον περὶ τῶν σῶν ἐρωτᾷς λογισμῶν; Καὶ ὁ Μακάριος ἔφη· Τὴν μὲν ῥωμαἳκὴν καὶ ἑλληνικὴν παίδευσιν ἴσταμαι, τὸν δὲ ἀλφάβητον τοῦ ἀγροίκου τούτου οὔπω μεμάθηκα. Τί δηλοῖ ὁ Ἅγιος ἐν τούτῳ; Ὅτι κᾂν πᾶσαν παίδευσιν ἦ τις ἐξησκηκὼς, μὴ τὸν διὰ ταπεινώσεως ἀληθοῦς ἀλφάβητον ἐν πρώτοις μάθοι, ἐν δευτέρῳ τιθεὶς ὡς ἐν παρέργῳ πᾶσαν σοφίαν κοσμικὴν, ἀπαιδευτός ἐστι τῷ ὄντι, καὶ ἀμαθέστατος. Πάλιν οὖν ἐπηρώτησεν αὐτὸν. Πῶς ἡμεῖς ἀπὸ τοσαύτης παιδεύσεως καὶ σοφίας οὐδὲν ἔχομεν; οὗτοι δὲ οἱ Αἰγύωτιοι τοσαύτας ἀρετὰς κέκτηνται; Λέγει, αὐτῷ ὁ Ἀρσένιος· Ἡμεῖς ἀπὸ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου παιδεύσεως οὐδὲν ἔχομεν· οὗτοι δὲ οἱ Αἰγύπτιοι καὶ ἰδιῶται ἀπὸ ἰδίων κόπων ἐκτήσαντο τὰς ἀρετάς.

[15] Πρὸς δὲ τὴν ταπεινοφροσύνην, καὶ εὐκατάνυκτος ἦν ὁ Ἅγιος, προχέων ἀεννάως τὸ ἱερὸν ἐκείνου δάκρυον· ὄλον γὰρ τὸν χρόνον τῆς ζωῆς αὐτοῦ καθεζόμενος εἰς τὸ ἐργόχειρον, ῥάκος εἶχεν ἐν τῷ πόλπῳ χάριν τῶν δακρύων, τῶν πιπτόντων ἀπὸ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτοῦ. Προσῆν δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ τὸ τῆς ἀγρυπνίας χάρισμα ὑπερφυῶς. Ποτὲ οὖν ἐκάλεσε τόντε ἀββᾶν Ἀλέξανδρον καὶ Ζώἳλον, τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ, καὶ ταπεινῶν ἑαυτὸν, εἴρηκεν· Ἐπειδὴ οἱ δαίμονες πολεμοῦσί με, καὶ οὐκ οἶδα εἰ κλέπτουσί με ἐν ὕπνῳ, τὴν νύκτα ταύτην κοπιάσατε μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ, καὶ τηρήσατέ με, εἰ νυστάζω ἐν τῇ ἀγρυπνίᾳ. Καὶ ἐκάθισαν εἳς ἐκ δεξιῶν αὐτοῦ, καὶ εἳς ἐξ εὐωνύμων αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ ὀψὲ σιωπήσαντες, καὶ εἶπον ἀμφότεροι· Ὅτι ἡμεῖς ἐκοιμήθημεν, καὶ ἀνέστημεν, καὶ οὐκ ᾐσθάνθημεν αὐτὸν νυστάξαντα, καὶ ἐπὶ τῷ πρωῒ, ὁ Θεὸς οἶδεν ἢ ὅτι ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ ἐποίησεν, ἵνα νοήσωμεν ὅτι ἐνύσταξεν, ἢ ὅτι κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν ἡ φύσις τοῦ ὕπνου ἤλθεν, ἐφύσησε τρεῖς πνοὰς, καὶ εὐθὺς ἀνέστη, λέγων· Ἐνύσταξα ναί. Καὶ ἀπεκρίθημεν· Ἡμεῖς οὐκ οἴδαμεν. Πλὴν ὅλην τὴν νύκτα διετέλει ἀγρυπνῶν, καὶ ὅτε ἦλθε τῷ πρωῒ διὰ τὴν φύσιν καθευδῆσαι, ἔλεγεν τῷ ὕπνῳ· Δεῦρο κακὲ δοῦλε, ὑπούργησον· καὶ ἥρπαξε μικρὸν καθεζόμενος, καὶ εὐθέως ἡγείρετο. Ὀψὲ σαββάτων ἐπιφωσκούσης κυριακῆς ἤφιε τὸν ἥλιον ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔτεινε τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν εὐχόμενος, ἕως οὗ πάλιν ὁ ἤλιος ἔλαμψεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ, καὶ

οὕτω λοιπὸν ἐκαθέζετο.

[16] Φέρων δὲ ἦν διὰ γλώσσης ὁ Μακάριος καὶ τοῦτο· ὅτι ἀρκετὸν τῷ μοναχῷ, ἵνα κοιμᾶται μίαν ὥραν, ἐάν ἐστιν ἀγωνιστής. Καὶ πάλιν· Ὄτι ξένος μοναχὸς εἰς ἀλλοτρίαν χώραν μηδὲν μεσαζέτω, καὶ ἀναπαύεται. Καὶ πάλιν εἶπεν· Ἐὰν τὸν Θεὸν ζητήσωμεν, φανήσεται ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐὰν αὐτὸν κατασχῶμεν, παραμένει ἡμῖν. Εἰργάζετο δὲ καὶ ταῖς χερσὶν ὁ Ἀρσένιος, ἀποστολικῷ καυχήματι σεμνυνόμενος· ἔπλεκε γὰρ τὴν σειρὰν, καὶ ἔῤῥπτεν ἕως ὥρας ἕκτης· καὶ τὸ δὴ θαυμαστὸν, ὅτι εἰ μὴ ἅπαξ τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ οὐκ ἤλλασσεν τῶν βαΐων τὸ ὕδωρ, μᾶλλον δὲ προσετίθη. Καὶ παρεκάλουν αὐτόν τινες τῶν πατέρων, λέγοντες· Διὰ τί οὐκ ἀλλάσσεις τῶν βαΐων τὸ ὕδωρ; ὅτι ὄζει. Καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· Ἀντὶ τῶν θυμιαμάτων [] καὶ τῶν μύρων, ὥν ἀπήλαυσα ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, χρεία ἀπολαύειν με τῆς δυσωδίας ταύτης· οὐ μὴ παρῆ καὶ τὸ ἐγκρατὲς ἐν τῷ τοιούτῳ σκοπῷ, ἀλλ᾽ ὑποπιάζων τὸ σῶμα, ἐδουλαγώγει ἑαυτὸν, ὡς ἄριστος πωλοδάμνης, φεύγων μὲν τὸν κόρον, ὡς ὑβριστὴν πῶλον. Τῆς ὁπώρας δὲ πάντῃ ἀπεχόμενος ἦ. Μόνον ὡς ἤκουσεν, ὅτι ἐτέλεσεν [] πᾶν γέννημα ὁπώρας, ἔλεγεν ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ· Φέρετέ μοι· καὶ ἐγεύετο ἅπαξ ἀπὸ πάντων μικρὸν, εὐχαριστῶν τῷ Θεῷ. Ἔλεγε δὲ ὁ ἀββᾶς Δανιὴλ περὶ αὐτοῦ· Ὅτι τοσαῦτα ἔτη ἔμεινεν μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν, μόνον θαλλὶν σίτου ἐποιοῦμεν αὐτῷ τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ, καὶ ὅτε παρεβάλομεν πρὸς αὐτὸν, ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἠσθίομεν.

[17] Ἀλλὰ γὰρ καὶ ἀκτήμων ἦν ὁ Ἀρσένιος, ὁ ὄντος ἐν ἀγαθοῖς πλούσιος. Ἔχρηζεν οὖν πράγματος ἕως ἑνὸς λικνοῦ [], καὶ μὴ ἔχων, πόθεν ἀγοράσαι, ἔλαβε παρά τινος ἀγάπην, καὶ εἶπεν· Εὐχαριστῶ σοι, Κύριε, ὅτι ἡξίωσάς με λαβεῖν ἀγάπην διὰ τὸ ὄνομά σου. Οἷον δὲ καὶ τὸ παρὸν ἀπαθείας ὢν ἀκροτάτης λεκτέον. Ἦλθε οὔν ποτε πρὸς αὐτὸν μαγιστριανὸς, φέρων αὐτῷ διαθήκην συγκλητικοῦ συγγενοῦς αὐτοῦ, ὃς κατέλειπεν αὐτῷ κληρονομίαν πολλὴν σφόδρα. Καὶ λαβὼν αὐτὴν ἤθελεν σχίσαι. Ἔπεσε δὲ ὁ μαγιστριανὸς εἰς τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ λέγων· Δέομαί σου, μὴ σχίσῃς αὐτὴν, μὴ δεξάμενος. Πρὸς τούτοις καὶ διακριτικὸς ὑπῆρχεν, εἴποτε εἴρετό τις. Πυθομένου οὖν τοῦ ἀββᾶ Μάρκου καὶ λέγοντος· Καλὲν τὸ μὴ ἔχειν τινὰ παράκλησιν ἐν τῷ κελλίῳ αὐτοῦ; καὶ γὰρ εἶδον ἀδελφὸν ἔχοντα μικρὰ λάχανα καὶ ἐκριζοῦντα αὐτά. Εἶπεν ὁ Γέρων· Καλὸν μέν ἐστιν· ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὴν ἕξιν τοῦ ἀθρώπου· ἐὰν γὰρ μὴ ἔχῃ ἴσχυν ἐν τῷ τοιούτῳ τρόπῳ, πάλιν φυτεύει ἄλλα. Ἄλλοτε πάλιν εἶπεν ὁ Γέρων τῷ αββᾷ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ ὅτ᾽ ἃν ἀποσχίσῃς τὰ θαλλία [] σου, δεῦρο γεῦσαι μετ᾽ εμοῦ. Ὁ οὖν ἀββᾶς Ἀλέξανδρος ὁμαλῶς εἰργάζετο καὶ ἐπιεικῶς, καὶ ὡς γέγονεν ἡ ὥρα, ἀκμὴν εἶχε θαλλία, καὶ θέλων τηρῆσαι τὸν λόγον τοῦ Γέρωντος, ἀνέμεινε πληρῶσαι αὐτά. Ὁ οὖν ἀββᾶς Ἀρσένιος ὡς εἶδεν ὅτι ἐχρόνισε, λογισάμενος μὴποτε ξένους ἔσχεν, ἐγεύσατο. Ὁ δὲ Ἀλέξανδρος, ὡς ἐτέλεσεν, ὀψὲ ἀπῆλθε· καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Γέρων· Ξένους ἔσχες; Καὶ λέγει· Οὐχί. Εἶπεν οὖν αὐτῷ· Πῶς οὐκ ἦλθες; Ὁ δὲ λέγει· Ὅτι εἶπές μοι, ὅτ᾽ ἂν ἀποσχίσῃς τὰ θαλλία σου, ἐλθὲ, καὶ τηρῶν σου τὸν λόγον, οὐκ ἦλθον, ὅτι ἄρτι ἐπλήρωσα. Καὶ ἐθαύμαζεν ὁ Γέρων τὴν ἀκρίβειαν αὐτοῦ, καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· Ταχυτέρως κατάλυε, ἵνα καὶ τὴν σύναξίν σου βάλῃς [*], καὶ τοῦ ὕδατός σου μεταλαμβάνῃς· εἰ δὲ μήγε, ταχέως ἔχει τὸ σῶμά σου ἀσθενῆσαι.

[18] Οὐκ ἐδεῖτο δὲ ταπεινοῦσθαι καιρῷ τινι τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ μαθηταῖς ὁ Μακάριος. Καθεζομένου αὐτοῦ ποτε ἐν τοῦ κάτω μέρεσι, καὶ ὀχλουμένου, ἔδοξεν αὐτῷ καταλιπεῖν τὸ κελλίον, μηδὲν ἐξ αὐτοῦ λαβών. Καὶ ἐπορεύθη πρὸς τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ μαθητὰς, τοὺς Φαρανίτας, Ἀλέξανδρον καὶ Ζώἳλον Εἶπεν οὖν Ἀλεξάνδρῳ· Ἀνάστα, ἀνάπλευσον. Καὶ ἐποίησεν οὔτως. Καὶ τῷ Ζωΐλῳ εἶπεν· Δερο μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἕως τοῦ ποταμοῦ, καὶ ζήτησόν μοι πλοῖον ἐπὶ τὴν Ἀλεξάνδρειαν ἀναπλέον. Καὶ οὕτως καὶ σὺ ἀνάπλευσον πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφόν σου. Ὁ δὲ Ζώἳλος ἐπὶ τῷ λόγῳ ταραχθεὶς, ἐσιώπησε, καὶ οὕτως ἐχώρισθησαν ἀπ᾽ ἀλλήλων. Κατῆλθεν οὖν ὁ Γέρων ἐπὶ τὰ μέρη Θηβαΐδος, καὶ ἠσθένησεν ἀῤῥωστίαν μεγάλην. Οἱ δὲ τούτου διακονιταὶ, εἶπον πρὸς ἀλλήλους· Μὴ ἆρά τις ἡμῶν ἐλύπησε τὸν Γέροντα, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐχορίσθη ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν; Καὶ οὐκ εὗρον ἐν ἑαυτοῖς οὐδέν. Ὑγιάνας δὲ ὁ Γερων εἶπεν· Πορεύσομαι πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας μου. Καὶ οὕτως ἀναπλεύσας ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν Πέτραν, ὄπου ἤσαν οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ. Ὄντος δὲ αὐτοῦ πλησίον τοῦ ποταμοῦ, παιδίσκη τις Αἰθιόπισσα ἐλθοῦσα, ἥψατο τῆς μηλωτῆς αὐτοῦ. Ὁ δὲ Γέρων ἐπετίμησεν αὐτῇ. Ἡ οὖν παιδίσκη λέγει αὐτῷ· Εἰ μοναχὸς εἶ, πορεύου εἰς τὸ ὄρος. Ὁ δὲ Γέρον ἐπι τῷ λόγῳ κατανυγεὶς, ἔλεγεν ἐν ἑαυτῷ· Ἀρσένιε, εἰ μοναχὸς εἶ, πορεύου εἰς τὸ ὄρος· καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦτο ἀπήντησαν αὐτῷ ὅτε Ἀλέξανδρος καὶ ὁ Ζώιλος· καὶ ἐπιπεσόντων αὐτῶν τοῖς ποσὶ αὐτοῦ, ἔῤῥιψεν ἑαυτὸν ὁ Γέρων· καὶ ἔκλαυσαν ἀμφότεροι. Εἶπεν δὲ ὁ Γέρων· οὐκ ἠκούσατε, ὅτι ἀστενῶ; Καὶ εἶπον αὐτῷ· Ναί. Καὶ λέγει ὁ Γέρον. Καὶ διὰ τί οὐκ ἤλθετε ἰδεῖν με; Καὶ λέγει ὁ ἀββᾶς Ἀλέξανδρος· Ὅτι ὁ χωρισμός σου ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν οὐ γέγονε πιθανὸς, καὶ πολλοὶ οὐκ ὠφελήθησαν, λέγοντες· Ὅτι εἰ μὴ παρήκουσαν τοῦ Γέροντος, οὐκ ἂν ἐχωρίσθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν. Καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Κᾀγὼ ἔγνων· πάλιν οὖν μέλλουσιν λέγειν οἱ ἄνθρωποι· Ὅτι μὴ εὑροῦσα ἡ περιστερὰ ἀνάπαυσιν τοῖς ποσὶν αὐτῆς, ἀνέστρεψεν πρὸς Νωὲ εἰς τὴν κιβωτόν· καὶ οὕτως ἐθεραπεύθησαν, καὶ ἔμειναν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ [*] ἕως τῆς τελευτῆς αὐτοῦ.

But now, who was more adorned with the gifts of prayer and humility than he? Of which matter indeed the witness is that brother who, having gone to the old man's cell, and observing through the window the things that were done within, sees the old man wholly as fire: The Saint burns in prayer like fire; which he joins with the utmost humility: (and indeed the brother was worthy to see these things.) As soon as he knocked, the old man came out, and, seeing the brother fixed in amazement, says to him: Have you been knocking a long time? Have you perhaps seen anything here? He said: By no means. And, having spoken to him, he dismissed him ^a. There was one who said that, as no one in the palace wore a more splendid garment than he, when he dwelt in the emperor's court; so no other wore a meaner one than he, when he came to the church of Scetis ^b. When once a few dried figs were distributed at Scetis; as being things of no account, they did not send them to Arsenius, that he might not be affronted. Hearing which, the old man did not come to the assembly, saying: You have cut me off, in not giving me the eulogia ^c, which God sent to the brethren, which I am not worthy to receive. And all heard, and were edified in the humility of the old man. And the presbyter ^d, going, led him to the assembly with joy.

[14] Moreover, that he inquired of others, and by no means proceeded by his own judgment, certain specimens of which are brought forward. is it not a work of humility? although he was most adorned with knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom. When therefore at a certain time he was inquiring of a certain Egyptian concerning his own thoughts, a certain other of the brethren, beholding him, said: Abba Arsenius, how do you, who are so mighty in Roman and Greek erudition, inquire of this rustic concerning your thoughts? And the Blessed one said: Roman and Greek learning ^e indeed I know; but the alphabet of this rustic I have not yet learned. And indeed what does the Saint signify by this thing? That, unless one first of all learn the alphabet through true humility, placing in the second rank, as accessory, all worldly wisdom, even if he be exercised in every discipline, he is truly rude and most ignorant. Again therefore he questioned him: How do we, from so great erudition and wisdom, have nothing of good; but these Egyptians possess such great virtues? Arsenius answers: We from the wisdom of the world have nothing: but those Egyptians and unlettered men from their own labors have acquired their virtues ^f.

[15] the shower of tears, nightly vigils; Besides humility, the Saint was also given to night-watching, pouring forth continually his holy tear: for at all times of his life, when he sat at the work of his hands, he wore a cloth in his bosom for the sake of the tears falling from his eyes ^g. There was in him besides the grace of vigils beyond what can be told. Once therefore he called ^h abbot Alexander and Zoilus, his disciples, and, humbling himself, said: Since the demons war against me, and I know not whether they steal upon me in sleep; this night watch with me, and observe whether in the vigil I drowse. Therefore from the evening time they sat silent, one on his right, the other on his left: and both said: We slept, and rose, nor did we perceive him nodding. But in the morning (God knows whether he himself feigned it, that we might think he had drowsed, or whether natural sleep truly crept upon him) he blew three times, and soon rose, saying: I indeed did drowse. And we answered: We do not know. But he passed the whole night ⁱ awake; and when in the morning, nature so compelling, he came to sleep, he said to sleep: Come, wicked servant; help; and, sitting, he snatched a little sleep, and immediately awoke. But on the evening of the Sabbaths, when ^k the Lord's day dawned, he let the sun go behind him, and stretched out his hands to heaven in prayer, until again the sun shone on his face; and thus he spent what remained by sitting.

[16] his various sayings; the labor of the hands, mortification: This saying too was familiar to the Blessed one: that ^l it sufficed a monk to sleep one hour, provided he deserved the name of a champion. And again: Let a monk ^m a stranger in a foreign land interpose himself in no business; and he will be at quiet. And again he said: If we seek ⁿ God, he will appear to us: and if we hold him, he will remain with us. Arsenius also labored with his hands, honored with the Apostolic boast: for he plaited ^o and sewed the rope until the sixth hour: and that indeed was marvelous, that he did not change the water of the palm-leaves except once in the year, but rather added more. And certain of the fathers asked him, saying: Why do you not change the water of the palm-leaves? for it stinks. And he said to them: In place of the incense and unguents which I enjoyed in the world, I must endure this stench. Nor did he have temperance in this matter as his aim, but, chastising his body, he reduced it into servitude, like the best breaker of horses; fleeing satiety, no otherwise than an insolent colt. From fruits [p] he abstained wholly, except that, when he had heard that every kind of fruit had come to ripeness, he said of his own accord: Bring me some. And once he tasted a little of all,

giving thanks to God. Abbot Daniel related of him: For so many years he stayed with us, and we made him only one thallis [q] of grain each year: and when we came to him, we ate of the same.

[17] And indeed, although Arsenius possessed nothing, yet he truly abounded in good things. So great was the want [r] of things under which he labored, that he lacked even a single linen undergarment [s], nor had he whence to buy it; poverty; the faculty of discernment; the perfect obedience of his disciple. he received alms from someone, and said: I give you thanks, Lord, that you have made me worthy of alms for your name's sake. But now that he attained the most sublime perfection of a mind free from perturbations must likewise be told. There came [t] to him once a magistrianus [u], bringing him the testament of a certain man of the senatorial order, his kinsman, who had left him a very great inheritance: after he had received it, he wished to tear it up. But the magistrianus fell at his feet, saying: I beseech you, do not tear it up [x], if you refuse to accept it. Besides these things he excelled in the faculty of discernment, if anyone questioned him. When therefore abbot Mark [y] was inquiring and saying: Is it good for someone to have no solace in his cell? For I saw a brother having small herbs, and rooting them up. To whom the old man: It is indeed good: but according to the disposition of the man: for if he have not strength in such a manner of acting, he will plant others again. Another time the old man said to abbot Alexander: When you have cut off your palm branches [z], come and eat with me. But abbot Alexander labored slowly and moderately. And when the time was at hand, he still had palm branches: and, wishing to obey the word of the old man, he waited until he had finished the whole matter. Abbot Arsenius therefore, when he saw that he delayed, thinking that perhaps he had guests, ate. But Alexander, when he had finished, came in the evening. To whom the old man: Did you have guests? He said: By no means. Then the old man: Why did you not come? He answers: Because you said to me, When you have cut off your branches, come: and, observing your command, I did not come sooner: for I have only now finished the labor. And the old man marveled at his exactness; and says to him: Withdraw more quickly [aa], that you may also fulfill your synaxis [bb], and take your water [cc]: but if not, your body will soon fall into infirmity.

[18] The Blessed one did not scruple at a certain time to be humbled before his disciples. [He dismisses, and again admits his disciples. He returns to Troe; a teaching given him by a girl.] When once he was dwelling in the lower parts, and was disturbed, it seemed good to him to leave the cell, taking nothing from it with him: and he went to his disciples, the Pharanites, Alexander and Zoilus. He said therefore to Alexander: Rise, and sail. And he obeyed. And to Zoilus he said: Come with me as far as the river, and seek me a ship which sails toward Alexandria: and so do you also sail to your brother. But Zoilus, troubled at these words, was silent: and thus the one was separated from the other. The old man therefore went down to the parts of the Thebaid [dd], and was seized with a grave infirmity [dd]. But his attendants said among themselves: Has any of us grieved the old man, and for this cause was he separated from us? And they found nothing of fault in themselves. But the old man, restored to health, said: I will go to my fathers: And thus, carried back by ship, he came to the Rock [ee], where his disciples were. But when he was near the river, a certain Ethiopian girl, approaching, touched his sheepskin cloak [ff]. But the old man rebuked her. But the girl said to him: If you are a monk, go to the mountain. But the old man, moved to compunction by the word, said within himself: Arsenius, if you are a monk, go to the mountain. Meanwhile Alexander and Zoilus meet him; and when they had fallen at his feet, the old man too cast himself down: and they wept on both sides. The old man said: Did you not hear that I was sick? They answered: It is so. Again the old man: And why did you not come to visit me? And abbot Alexander said: Because your separation from us was not approved; nay, it profited many not, who said: Unless they had been disobedient to the old man, he would not have separated himself from them. Then he: I too knew it. Again therefore men will say: The dove, not finding rest for her feet, returned to Noah into the ark. And thus they were healed, and remained with him until his death.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Ὁπώρας. Lives of the Fathers, in the same place, little book 4, number 6, and Cotelier, page 357, render it "of apples." That Daniel narrated this deed, we have from the same source.

q. Θαλλὶν σίτου. Lives of the Fathers, in the same place, number 4: A small measure of food. Cotelier: One thallium, a measure of grain. In Surius, number 18: Thallium: for one must use these native names. This measure therefore among the Egyptians was made of palm leaves; as is gathered from the etymology of the name, of which Cangius; and below here, number 17; where the word θαλλία.

r. Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 6, number 3, and Cotelier, page 357.

s. Λίνον, which I substitute in the margin, among other things signifies fine linen. We, with Cotelier, page 357, understand here a kindred thing. The Lives of the Fathers put a plainly different thing, book 5, little book 6, number 3: He had need in his necessity of even a single siliqua of coin (of which Cangius in the Latin Glossary), and when he did not find it, he received from someone as it were alms. The old translator must have read ἕως νούμου ἑνὸς, when he wrote "up to a single siliqua of coin." Our parchment codex of the Lives of the Fathers, written in uncial or square letters perhaps about a thousand years ago, under the name of Caesarius the bishop, and marked O Ms. 10, reads: He had need in his necessity up to a single siliqua of coin.

t. These things are narrated in the Lives of the Fathers, in the same place, little book 6, number 2, and in Cotelier, page 362, from the mouth of Daniel.

u. Μαγιστριανός: magistrianus or magisterianus. Those were of the office of the palatine militia, who were also called agentes in rebus. Rosweyde collected various things about them in the Onomasticon. To Cangius he is an official of the master of the offices. In the second part of the Codex of the rules, edited by Holstenius, page 477, Grimlaicus, narrating the same deed, says: There came a certain man named magistratus, most ineptly putting an appellative name for a proper name.

x. It is subjoined in the Lives of the Fathers: Because my head will be cut off. And abbot Arsenius says to him: I died before he did; but he has only now died; how did he make me his heir? And he sent back the testament, accepting nothing. This place the biographer touches below, number 26, toward the end; so that it is a wonder that it is omitted here.

y. Is it the same Mark of whom above, number 7, letter k? Of a holy man of the same name, a monk in Scetis, with the epoch about the year 400, treatment was made on the 5th of March, page 367; where also of two others, page 368. For the rest, the matter here expressed by the writer of the Life is found in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 10, number 7; in Cotelier, page 358.

z. Lives of the Fathers: palm-shoots. Θάλια Cangius writes with a single λ, which in the manuscript lexicon of Nicomedes, he says, is τὰ φύλλα τῶν φοινίκων, the leaves of palms. More there.

aa. Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 14, number 1: Disjoin (the translator must have read καταλύου) from your work; but ineptly and in a plainly foreign sense, says Cotelier rightly in the notes, column 799: for how is one bidden to disjoin himself from his work, or to lay aside his work, who had already so finished his work that he was not going to return until he had finished it? Cotelier, page 359, renders it "break" (adding that this is not implied by the force of the word διαλύω) "your fast." Add that "you may break your fast" is rather indicated by what is next, "take YOUR water." And so "withdraw" pleases most; for this καταλύω signifies both in itself and by the force of the word, and coheres with what is joined: as if you should say: receive yourself within, rest a little, that you may recite the synaxis or office (and indeed, as another reading noted in the margin of the text in Cotelier has, ἀταράχως, without perturbation), and then drive off hunger, restore your strength, by taking your water; but if not, etc.

bb. Synaxis, among other things, signifies the ecclesiastical Office, as you may see in Cangius in the Latin Glossary. Cotelier, page 359: That you may also recite your Office. The Lives of the Fathers, in the place just cited: That you may also perform the ministry of psalmody. I would prefer "that you may complete or recite your Office"; for what has "the ministry of psalmody," etc., to do here with an empty stomach and the utmost weakness, indicated by the "if not," etc., that follows?

cc. Not indeed plain water; which would have profited nothing to relieve hunger and restore strength; but "your water," with which you are wont to feed yourself, cooked with bread, herbs, or other such edibles, take, eat (it does not say "drink," which is done with plain water). Thus it is said, to take broth, to eat milk, although bread be soaked in them.

dd. That here must be written "of Alexandria," not "of the Thebaid," we noted in the preliminary Commentary, number 33. But the things which are here narrated you have in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 15, number 9, in Cotelier from page 363.

ee. Understand the Rock of Troe, of which above. Surius, number 22, calls it the Rock of Stroma. The Medicean copy of the King of France cited below has Στρώμνης, but the writing is not consistent: for I also read Τρώμην a little after in the accusative case. Neither pleases. Lives of the Fathers, in the same place, number 10, Trohe.

ff. Μελωτὴ, melote or melotes, a sheepskin, from the Greek μῆλον, a sheep, but also any four-footed animal. And so Ciaccone, in the notes to Cassian, page 681, rightly judges that it can be taken for any skin. It can also be taken determinately for a goatskin. Cassian, book 1, chapter 8, treating of the melote of the Egyptian monks, writes thus: The last of their garments is a goatskin, which is called melotes or pera. Of these more in Cangius in both Glossaries.

* με

* Cotelier ἀρωμάτων.

* Cotelier ἐτελέσθη

* λίνου.

* Otherwise βαΐα.

* Otherwise ποιῇς ἀταράχως.

* Cotelier ἔμεινε μετ᾽ αὐτῶν.

* Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 15, number 9, add "of Egypt."

CHAPTER III.

The perception of the deceits of the demon and of secret things; illness, vision, the care of a most abject burial; death; the disposition of his body, the summary of his life; a eulogy.

Πάλιν ἄλλου πυθομένου, καὶ λέγοντος τῷ Ἀρσενίῳ· Οἱ λογισμοί μου θλίβουσί με, λέγοντες· Οὑ δύνασαι νηστεῦσαι, οὔδε ἐργάζεσθαι, κᾂν ἐπισκέπτου ἀσθενοῦντας, καὶ τοῦτο δὲ ἀγάπη ἐστίν. Εἰδώς δὲ ὁ Γέρων τὰς πονηρίας, καὶ τοὺς δέλους τῶν δαιμόνων, λέγει τῷ ἀδελφῷ· Ὕπαγε, φάγε, πίε, κοιμῶ, καὶ μὴ ἐργάσῃ· μόνον τοῦ κελλίου σου μὴ ἀποστῇς· ᾔδη γὰρ ὅτι ἡ ὑπομονὴ τοῦ κελλίου φέρει τὸν μοναχὸν εἰς τὴν τάξιν αὐτοῦ. Οὐκ ἀπελιμπάνετο δὲ τοῦ διορατικοῦ χαρίσματος, ἔμπλεως ὢν ὁ ἀοίδιμος θείας χάριτος. Καθημένου οὖν αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸ κελλίον, ἦλθε φωνὴ, λέγουσα αὐτῷ· Δεῦρο, δείξω σοι τὰ ἔργα τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ ἀναστὰς ἐξῆλθεν, καὶ ἀπήνεγκεν αὐτὸν εἰς τόπον τινὰ, καὶ ἔδειξεν αὐτῷ αἰθίοπα, κόπτοντα ξύλα, καὶ ποιοῦντα φωρτίον μέγα, ἐπείραζε δὲ βαστάσαι αὐτὸ, καὶ οὐκ ἠδύνατο, καὶ ἀντὶ τοῦ ἆραι ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ἀπελθὼν πάλιν ἔκοπτε ξύλα καὶ προσετίθη τῷ φωρτίῳ. Καὶ προβὰς ὀλίγον, ἔδειξεν αὐτῷ τινα ἱστάμενον επὶ λάκκου, καὶ ἀντλοῦντα ὕδωρ ἐξ αὐτοῦ, καὶ μεταβάλλοντα εἱς δεξαμενὴν τετρυπημένην, καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ὕδωρ ἐκχέουσαν. Καὶ πάλιν λέγει αὐτῷ· Δεῦρο, δείξω σοι· καὶ θεωρεῖ ἱερὸν καὶ δύο ἄνδρας καθημένους ἵπποις, καὶ βαστάζοντας ξύλον πλαγίως ἕνα κατὰ τοῦ ἐνός. Ἤθελον δὲ διὰ τῆς πύλης τοῦ ἱεροῦ εἰσελθεῖν, καὶ οὐκ ἠδύναντο, διὰ τὸ εἶναι τὸ ξύλον αὐτῶν πλάγιον· οὐκ ἐταπείνωσε δὲ αὐτὸν ὁ εἳς ὁπίσω τοῦ ἄλλου ἐνέγκαι τὸ ξύλον ἐπ᾽ εὐθείας καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἔμειναν ἔξω τῆς πύλης. Ἐπύθετο οὖν ὁ Ἀρσένιος τί ἦ ταῦτα; καὶ ἐῤῥέθη αὐτῷ· Οὗτοί εἰσί, φησιν, βαστάζοντες ξύλον δικαιοσύνης μετὰ ὑπερηφανίας, καὶ οὐκ ἐταπεινώθησαν [] τοῦ πορευθῆναι τῇ ταπεινῇ ὁδῷ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, διὸ υένουσιν ἔξω τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ Θεοῦ· ὁ δὲ τὰ ξύλα κόπτων, ἄνθρωπός ἐστι ἐν ἁμαρτίαις πεφωρτισμένος, καὶ ἀντὶ τοῦ μετανοῆσαι, ἕτερα προστιθῶν οὐ παύεται []. Καὶ ὁ τὸ ὕδωρ ἀντλῶν, ἄνθρωπός ἐστι καλὰ μὲν ἔργα ποιῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπειδὴ σὺν αὐτοῖς ἔχει τινὰ πονηρὰ, ἐν τούτῳ ἀπώλεσε καὶ τὰ χρηστά. Χρεία οὔν νήψεως τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ εἰς τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ, ἵνα μὴ εἰς κενὸν κοπιάσῃ.

[20] Διηγούμενον δέ ἐστι καὶ τοῦτο περὶ αὐτοῦ· ὅτε ἀσθενήσαντος αὐτοῦ ποτε εἰς Σκῆτιν, ἀπῆλθεν ὁ πρεσβύτερος, καὶ ἤνεγκεν αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ ἔθηκεν αὐτὸν εἰς χαλάδριον, καὶ μικρὸν προσκεφάλαιον πρὸς τῇ κεφαλῇ αὐτοῦ. Καὶ εἷς τῶν γερόντων ἐλθὼν εἰς ἐπίσκεψιν αὐτοῦ, ἰδὼν αὐτὸν εἰς τὸ χαλάδριον, ἐσκανδαλίσθη, λέγων· Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀββᾶς Ἀρσένιος, καὶ εἰς ταῦτα ἀνάκειται; Λαβὼν δὲ αὐτὸν ὁ πρεσβύτερος, λέγει αὐτῷ. Τί ἦν τὸ ἔργον σου ἐν τῇ κώμῃ σου; Λέγει ὁ γέρων· Ποιμὴν προβάτων ἤμην. Καὶ λέγει ὁ πρεστβύτερος· Πῶς οὖν, φησι, διῆγες τὸν βίον σου; Ὁ δέ φησιν· Ἐν κόπῳ πολλῷ, καὶ μόχθῳ. Καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· Καὶ πῶς διάγεις ἀρτίως ἐν τῷ κελλίῳ σου; Ὁ δὲ ἔφη· Καλῶς ἀναπαύομαι. Καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ πρεσβύσερος. Βλέπεις τοῦτον τὸν ἀββᾶν Ἀρσένιον; πατήρ βασιλέων ὑπῆρχεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, καὶ χίλιοι δοῦλοι σηρικοφόροι παρέσταν αὐτῷ· πολύτιμα δὲ στρώματα ὑποκάτω αὐτοῦ ἦν· σὺ δὲ ποιμὴν ὢν, οὐκ εἶχες, ἣν νῦν ἔχεις, ἀνάπαυσιν· καὶ οὗτος τὴν τρυφὴν, ἣν εἶχεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, ὧδε οὐκ ἔχει. Ἰδοὺ οὖν, σὺ μὲν ἀναπαύῃ, κᾀκεῖνος θλίβεται. Ὁ δὲ ἀκούσας ταῦτα, κατηνύγη, καὶ ἔβαλε μετάνοιαν, λέγων· Συγχώρησόν μοι, ἀββᾶ, ἡμάρτηκα, ὅτι οὗτος ἧλθεν εἰς κόπον, κᾀγώ εἰς ἀνάπαυσιν· καὶ ὠφεληθεὶς ὁ γέρων ἀνεχώρησε.

[21] Τούτῳ τῷ Μακαρίῳ ἐπέστησαν οἱ δαίμονες ἐν τῷ κελλίῳ, θλίβοντες αὐτόν. Παραλαβόντες δὲ οἱ διακονοῦντες αὐτῷ, καὶ στάντες ἔξω τῆς κέλλας, ἤκουσαν αὐτοῦ βοῶντος πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ λέγοντος· Ὁ Θεός μου, μὴ ἐγκαταλίπῃς με· οὐδὲν ἐποίησα ἐνώπιόν σου ἀγαθόν· ἀλλὰ δός μοι κατὰ τὴν χρηστότητά σου βαλεῖν ἀρχήν. Πυθομένου δὲ αὐτὸν ἑτέρου ἀδελφοῦ ἀκοῦσαι λόγον ὠφελείας, εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Γέρων· Ὅση σοι δύναμις, ἀγώνισαι, ἵνα ἡ ἔνδον σου ἐργασία κατὰ Θεὸν ᾖ, καὶ νικήσῃ τὰ ἔξω πάθη. Διηνεκῶς οὖν ἐν πολλοῖς ἔτεσιν ὁ Μακάριος τοὺς ἀσκητικοὺς αὐτοῦ ἀγῶνας, καὶ ἀνάπλεως ὢν παντὸς κατορθώματος, ἐπεὶ ἐνέστηκεν ὁ τῆς μεταστάσεως καιρὸς, παρῃνήνει τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ λέγων· Μὴ φροντίσητε ποιεῖν ἀγάπας [] ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ· ἐγὼ γὰρ εἴτι ἐποίησα ἐμαυτῷ [], ταύτην ἔχω εὑρεῖν. Ἐταράχθησαν οὖν οἱ μαθηταὶ, ἀκούσαντες ταῦτα· καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Οὔπω ἦλθε ἡ ὥρα· ὅτε δὲ ἔρχεται, λέγω ὑμῖν· κριθῆναι δὲ ἔχω μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἐὰν δώσητε τὸ λείψανόν μοῦ τινι. Τί οὖν, φησι, ποιήσομεν; ὅτι οὐκ οἴδαμεν ἐνταφιάσαι; Καὶ λέγει αὐτοις ὁ Γέρων· Οὐκ οἴδατε βαλεῖν σχοινίον [*], καὶ ἆραί με εἰς τὸ ὄρος; Οὗτος δὲ ἦν ὁ λόγος τοῦ Γέροντος· Ἀρσένιε, διὸ ἐξῆλθες; τοῦτο σημαῖνον· Ἐπείπερ, φησὶ, Θεῷ συνεῖναι σαυτὸν προέθου, ἀκλόνητον τὸν νοῦν διατήρει, ἵνα μὴ διὰ τῆς λήθης κενὸς γένῃ τοῦ συναμιλλᾶσθαι Θεῷ.

[22] Ἔλεγε δὲ καὶ τοῦτο· Λαλήσας γὰρ πολλάκις μετεμελήθην, σιωπήσας δὲ οὐδέποτε. Τούτῳ γὰρ ἐδήλωσεν ὁ Ὅσιος, ὅτι ἐκ πολυλογίας πολλάκις, καὶ μὴ ἐστοχασμένος προσφέρειν τὰ ἁρμόζοντα, ἐκπίπτει ὁ ἄνθρωπος, καὶ ἐπὶ συμφορὰς ἴσως καὶ θανατηφόρους, καὶ δικαιολογίας κρημνιζόμενος· ὃ ἄφρων μή αἰσθανόμενος, οὐ μετεμελήθη, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ἀναισχυντῶν ἐπὶ τὸ ἐναντίον εἰς τὸ λέγειν ἀνδρίζεται διὰ ἔριν κακίας· παγὶς γὰρ ἰσχυρὰ ἀνδρὶ τὰ ἴδια χείλη, καὶ ἁλίσκεται ῥήμασιν ἰδίου στώματος. Ὁ δὲ εὔφρων, καὶ τὸν νοῦν κεκαθαρμένον ἐπέχων, λαλήσας παρὰ τὸ δέον, πολλάκις μετεμελήθη. Εἶθε γάρ, φησι, μὴ τόνδε λόγον προεξήνεγκον· ἐκ γὰρ πολυλογίας οὐκ ἐκφεύξῃ ἁμαρτίαν. Διὰ τοῦτο καλὸν ἡ εὔκαιρος σιωπή. Ὡς δὲ ἐγγὺς ἦν τοῦ τελευτᾷν [*], εἶδον αὐτὸν οἱ ἀδελφοὶ κλαίοντα, καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῷ· Ἐν ἀληθείᾳ καὶ σὺ φοβῇ, πάτερ; Καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· τὸ Ἐν ἀληθείᾳ ὁ φόβος ὁ νῦν ὢν μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἐν τῇ ὥρᾳ ταύτῃ, μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἦν, ἀφ᾽ οὗ γέγονα μοναχός· καὶ οὕτως ἐκοιμήθη ἐν εἰρήνῃ. Ἀμέλει ὁ ἀββᾶς Ποιμὴν ἀκούσας ὅτι ἐκοιμήθη, δακρύσας εἶπεν· Μακάριος εἶ, ἀββᾶ Ἀρσένιε, ὅτι ἔκλαυσας σαυτὸν ἐν τῷδε τῷ κόσμῳ· ὁ γὰρ μὴ κλαίων ἑαυτὸν ὧδε, αἰωνίως ἐκεῖ κλαύσεται· εἴτε οὖν ὧδε ἐκὸν, εἰτε ἐκεῖ ἀπὸ βασάνων ἀδύνατον μὴ κλαῦσαι.

[23] Διηγήσατο δὲ ὁ ἀββᾶς Δανιὴλ περὶ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι οὐδέποτε ἠθέλησε λαλῆσαι ζήτημα τῆς γραφῆς, καίπερ δυνάμενος λαλῆσαι, εἰ ἤθελεν· ἀλλ᾽ οὔτε ἐπιστολὴν ταχέως ἔγραφεν. Ὅτε δὲ ἤρχετο εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν διὰ χρόνου, ὁπίσω τοῦ στύλου ἐκαθίζετο, ἵνα μηδεὶς ἴδῃ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ, μή τε αὐτὸς ἄλλου προσχῇ· ἦν δὲ τὸ εἶδος αὐτοῦ ἀγγελικὸς, ὥσπερ τοῦ Ἰακὼβ, ὁλοπόλιος, ἀστεῖος τῷ στόματι [], ξηρὸς δὲ ὑπῆρχε καὶ μακρὸς, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκυρτώθη ἀπὸ τοῦ γήρως. Εἶχεν δὲ τὸν πώγονα μέγαν, φθάνοντα ἕως τῆς κοιλίας· αἱ δὲ τρίχες τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτοῦ ἔπεσον ἀπὸ τοῦ πολλοῦ κλαυθμοῦ· τελευτᾶ [] δὲ ἐτῶν ἐνενήκοντα πέντε· ἐποίησεν δὲ εἰς τὸ παλάτιον τοῦ τῆς θείας μνήμης Θεοδοσίου τοῦ μεγάλου ἕως τοῦ τεσσαρακοστοῦ ἔτους τῆς αὐτοῦ ἡλικίας, καὶ ἐν τῇ Σκῆτι ἴτη μ᾽, καὶ δέκα εἰς Τρώην τῆς ἄνω Βαβυλῶνος κατέναντι Μέμφεως· καὶ ἔτη γ᾽ εἰς τὸν Κάνωπον τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας, καὶ ἄλλα δύο ἔτη ἦλθεν πάλιν εἰς Τρώην, καὶ ἐκεῖ ἐκοιμήθη, τελέσας [] ἐν εἰρήνῃ καὶ φόβῳ Θεοῦ τὸν δρόμον αὐτοῦ· ὅτι ἦν ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς καὶ πλήρης Πνεύματος ἁγίου, καὶ πίστεως. Κατέλιπε δέ μοι τὸν χιτῶνα αὐτοῦ τὸν δερματινὸν, καὶ τρίχινον κάμισιν λευκὸν, καὶ σανδάλια σεβέννινα [], καὶ ἐγὼ ὁ ἀνάξιος ἐφόρεσα αὐτὰ, ὅπως εὐλογηθῶ. Τοῦτο τὸ πέρας τοῦ βιου τοῦ Μακαρίου Ἀρσενίου, ὡς ἐν ὀλίγοις δὲ διηγημένον, οὐ κατὰ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ἀξιαγάστων αὐτοῦ πρακτικῶν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸ φθᾶσαν βραχυμερὲς γραφῇ παραδοθῆναι παρὰ τῶν ὁσίων Γερόντων. Ἡμεῖς δὲ καὶ τὰ περὶ ἑαυτῶν ληψόμενοι [*], οὐκ ὀκνήσομεν τόλμῃ χρώμενοι προσθῆναί τι τοῖς εἰρημένοις, τῆς μὲν πενιχρολογίας ἡμῶν δήλωσιν, τοῦ δὲ πρὸς τὸν Ἅγιον πόθου ἀποπλήρωσιν.

[24] Τίς λόγος δυνηθείη φράσαι τοῦ πανολβίου τούτου, καὶ τρισμάκαρος ὁσιωτάτου ἀνδρὸς τὰ κατορθώματα διηγήσασθαι; ἃ οὐ μόνον ἡ καθ᾽

ἡμᾶς γενεὰ θαυμάζει, καὶ πειρᾶται τὰς τούτου ἀθλητικὰς ἐν ἀσκήσει παλαίστρας ζηλοτυπεῖν, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ ἀκρέμονες καὶ κορυφαῖοι τῶν ἁγίων ἀρχαίων πατέρων τὴν τοῦ ἐμηνύσαντο πολιτείαν· λέγω δὴ τὸν μέγαν Εὐθύμιον, ὃς πᾶσαν σπουδὴν ἐποιεῖτο τούτου μιμεῖσθαι τὰς ἀρετὰς, τήντε ἡσυχίαν αὐτοῦ, καὶ σιωπὴν, καὶ ταπεινοφροσύνην, τὸ τοῦ ἐνδύματος εὐτελὲς, καὶ τὴν τῶν βρωμάτων ἀποχὴν, καὶ τὴν εἰς πάντα καρτερίαν τὸ ἑαυτῷ προσέχειν, κατὰ τὸ ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου λεγόμενον· Ἀρσένιε, διὸ ἐξῆλθες; ἐζήλου δὲ αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν κατάνυξιν, καὶ τὰ δάκρυα, καὶ τὰς παννύχους ἀγρυπνίας, τὸ φιλέρημόν τε καὶ μισόδοξον, καὶ μισοσόντυχον, τὸ εἰς προσευχὴν πρόθυμόντε καὶ εὔτονον, τότε συμπαθὲς καὶ διακριτικόν. Ἐπειδὴ τοίνυν πάσῃ σπουδῇ τὴν ἐκείνου ἐμιμήσατο πολιτείαν, καὶ τῶν ἐκείνῳ προσόντων χαρισμάτων ἠξιώθη ἐν ἀπολαύσει γενέσθαι τῆς τε τοῦ παναγίου πνεύματος μετουσίας, καὶ τῆς τοῦ θείου φωτὸς ἐλλάμψεως, καὶ τοῦ διορατικοῦ χαρίτματος.

When again another questioned and said to Arsenius: My thoughts afflict me, suggesting: [The Saint was an inspector of the deceits of the demon and a searcher of secret things, honored with visions.] You cannot fast, nor labor; at least visit the sick; and this certainly is charity. The old man therefore, having thoroughly perceived the arts and deceits of the demon, said to the brother: Go, eat, drink, sleep, and do not work: only do not depart from your cell: for he knew that by the exercise of patience in his cell the monk is reduced into his order ^a. Nor was the celebrated Man destitute of the gift of perceiving ^b secret things, being most heaped up with divine grace. When he was sitting ^c in his cell, a voice came, saying to him: Come, I will show you the works of men. And rising, he went out; and it transported him to a certain place, and showed him an Ethiopian, cutting wood, and heaping it into a great bundle: which he tried to carry, but could not; and instead of taking anything off it, going away again he cut wood and added it to the bundle. And when he had gone forward a little, it showed him someone who stood at a cistern, and drew water from it, and poured it into a perforated tank, which poured it out. And again it says to him: Come, I will show you another thing. And he beholds a temple, and two men who sat upon horses, and carried a beam crosswise, one against the other. But they wished to enter through the gate of the temple, and could not, because their beam was crosswise; nor did the one humble himself behind the other, to carry the beam straight; and therefore they remained outside the gate. And Arsenius inquired what these things meant. And it was said to him: These, he said, are they who carry the beam of justice with pride, and did not humble themselves to walk by the humble way of Christ: therefore they remain outside the kingdom of God. But he who cuts wood is a man laden with sins, who, instead of doing penance, does not cease to add others. But that one who draws water is a man who indeed does good works; but since with them he has certain evil ones, in this he has lost also the good ones. Watchfulness therefore is needful to a man in his works, that he may not labor in vain.

[20] This too is narrated of him. When once he was sick at Scetis, the presbyter, going, brought him to the church, A certain man, offended at the Saint being sick, is corrected. and laid him on a couch ^d, and a small pillow at his head. One of the old men, when he had come to visit him, and had seen him on the couch, was offended, saying: Is this abbot Arsenius, and does he lie down in this manner? But the elder took him and said: What was your work in your village? The old man answers: I was a shepherd of sheep. The presbyter presses: How then, he says, did you pass your life? He said: In much labor and toil. Then the other again: And how do you now live in your cell? He answered: I rest conveniently. And again the presbyter: You see this abbot Arsenius? He was the father of emperors in the world, and a thousand servants clothed in silk attended ^e him: precious couches too were beneath him: but you, being a shepherd, did not have the rest which you now have: but he does not have here the delights which he had in the world. Behold then; you indulge in quiet; but he is afflicted. Hearing which, he was moved to compunction, and, his body inclined ^f, asked pardon, saying: Pardon me, abba, I have sinned. This one came to labor, and I to rest. And with profit the old man withdrew.

[21] [Being tempted, he humbles himself; teaches to overcome external affections; wishes to be buried most abjectly: a saying of his:] The demons once assailed this Blessed one ^g in his cell, afflicting him. But those who ministered to him, coming and standing outside the cell, heard him crying to God, and saying: O my God, do not forsake me; I have done nothing good in your sight: but grant me, according to your kindness, to lay a beginning. But when ^h another brother questioned him, that he might hear something good from him, the old man said: Strive, as much as you can, that your inner working may be according to God, and you will overcome the external appetites. After therefore the Blessed one had continually for many years drained out ⁱ his ascetic contests, being now full of every virtue, and the time of his migration drew near, he exhorted ^k his disciples, saying: Do not be solicitous ^l to make agapes ^m for me: for I, if indeed I have done anything for myself, will find that. The disciples therefore were troubled ⁿ, hearing these things; and he said to them: The hour has not yet come; but when it comes, I will tell you. For I must undergo judgment with you before the tribunal ^o of Christ, if you give my body to anyone [p]. What then, they say, shall we do? Because we know not [q] how to bury it. And the old man says to them: Do you not know how to cast a rope, and take me up onto the mountain? But this was the saying of the old man frequently used: Arsenius, why did you go out from the world [r]? Signifying this thing: Since, he said, you offered yourself to consort with God, keep your mind unshaken, that you may not through forgetfulness become empty of striving [s] with God.

[22] likewise another saying; the fear of death, which he holily undergoes: He said this also: I have often repented [t] of having spoken; but of having been silent, never. For by this the Saint indicated [u] that by much speaking a man often, and not aiming to offer what is fitting, falls; being cast down indeed into calamities perhaps even deadly, and into contentions. Which the fool, not perceiving, is not led by penitence, but rather, in his shamelessness, is on the contrary strengthened to speak on account of the contention of malice: for a man's own lips are a strong snare to him, and he is caught by the words of his own mouth. But the wise man, and he who keeps his mind purged, having spoken beyond what he ought, has often repented. Would, he said, that I had not brought forth this word! For out of much speaking you will not escape sin. Therefore a good thing is timely silence. When now he was near to death [*], the brethren saw him weeping; and they say to him: In truth, do you too fear, father? He answers: In truth, the fear which is now with me in this hour, has been with me from the time I became a monk [x]: and thus he fell asleep in peace. Certainly abbot Poemen [y], having heard of his death, weeping said: Blessed are you, abba Arsenius, that you wept for yourself in this world: for he who does not weep for himself here, will weep eternally there: whether therefore willingly here, or there from torments, it is impossible not to weep.

[23] Abbot Daniel related of him, that he never wished to speak of any question of Scripture, [in his life always desiring to lie hidden: whose portrait is given with a summary of his life,] although, if he had wished, he could have spoken: but neither did he readily write a letter. But when at intervals he came to the church, he sat behind the pillar, that no one might see his face, nor that he himself might attend to another. His countenance was angelic, like that of Jacob; he was wholly gray; pleasant of mouth, dry, tall of stature, but bent from old age. He had a long beard, reaching down to his belly: but the hairs of his eyes had fallen out from much weeping. He died in the ninety-fifth year of his age. He spent in the palace of the emperor Theodosius the Great of divine memory up to the fortieth year of his age [z]: in Scetis forty years: but in Troe of upper [aa] Babylon toward Memphis, ten years: three at Canopus [bb] of Alexandria: and in the remaining two years he returned to Troe; and there fell asleep, finishing his course in peace and the fear of God: for he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. He left me his leathern tunic, and a white [cc] hair-cloth shirt, and sandals made of palm-fiber. And I, unworthy, wore them, that I might be blessed [dd]. This is the passing of the life of Arsenius; set forth indeed briefly, not according to the multitude of his deeds worthy of admiration, but according to the brief summary which came down committed to writing by the holy old men. But we, having received these things from them, will not shrink from daring somewhat, and adding to what has already been said; both that the poverty of our discourse may be shown, and that our propense good will toward the Saint may be fulfilled.

[24] What discourse could be equal to recounting the good deeds and a eulogy. of this most fortunate, most blessed, and most holy Man? Which not only our age admires, and tries to emulate the athletic wrestlings drained out by him in ascetic discipline, but the chief and foremost of the ancient holy fathers too have expressed the manner of his life: I mean the great Euthymius, who took the greatest pains to imitate his virtues; his withdrawal, his silence, his humility, the meanness of his dress, his abstinence from foods, his watchfulness, by which in all things he attended to himself, according to that which was said by him: Arsenius, why did you go out from the world? Besides, he strove to emulate his compunction, his tears, his nightly vigils, his love of solitude, his hatred of glory and of society, his readiness and vigor in prayer, his compassion and discernment. Since therefore with all zeal he imitated the manner of his life, he received also the gift of enjoying the graces with which that one was endowed, the communication of the most holy Spirit, the illumination of the divine light, and the grace of perceiving secret things.

ANNOTATIONS.

cooperating, until he came to his order. And when he had gained confidence against evil thoughts, he conquered them. Cotelier, page 355, does not read those things in his text.

Μέμφετο Ἀρσένιόν τις ἰδὼν ἐπὶ κώεσιν ὄντα. Someone found fault with Arsenius, seeing him to be upon skins. τὸ Κῶος is a lamb's or sheep's skin: and indeed why not of other quadrupeds? Κῶος also signifies a coverlet. In the Medicean copy of the King of France it is εὐτελές τι στρῶμα: in Surius, number 21, a mean coverlet. Furthermore this history the praised Cotelier commemorates, page 367.

p. Lives of the Fathers: If you permit anyone to do anything with my body.

q. Lives of the Fathers: To clothe or bury the dead.

r. Lives of the Fathers: But that saying was always in the mouth of Arsenius. Which St. Euthymius too had before his eyes, as is established from his Life on the 20th of January, page 311, number 59. St. Dorotheus the archimandrite, edited by our Cordier, in institution 10 has thus: Abbot Arsenius continually inculcated to himself: Arsenius, why did you go out? We are so desperately slothful that we neither know why we went out, nor understand what it is that we wished. Wherefore we not only do not make progress, but are always afflicted.

s. Συναμιλλᾶσθαι, which was in our copy, how it makes sufficiently to the purpose here, I do not see: for it is "to contend with someone." Better fits συνομιλεῖσθαι, that here it may be "to consort with God": and thus it agrees with τῷ συνεῖναι, which precedes.

t. Lives of the Fathers: Always repented: Cotelier, often.

u. This ascetic explanation St. Theodore the Studite either added by his own effort, or borrowed from elsewhere, which I find here neither in Cotelier nor in the Lives of the Fathers.

x. Lives of the Fathers add: And I fear greatly. On the 8th of January, in the Life of Bl. Lorenzo Giustiniani, patriarch of Venice, chapter 10, page 561, of him when dying it is said: Representing Macarius in confidence, Arsenius in fear: walking between both, so that with confidence he feared, and not without fear he trusted.

y. Of him the preliminary Commentary; who in the Lives of the Fathers is called Pastor, for this is what ποιμὴν means in Greek.

z. Cotelier, page 371, forty years, as we observed elsewhere; adding: made father of the most divine Arcadius and Honorius.

aa. Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 15, number 10: In the place which is called Trohe above Babylon. The translator must have read in the Greek εἰς Τρώην τὴν ἄνω Βαβυλῶνος, or εἰς Τρώνν ἄνω τῆς Βαβυλῶνος. And thus understand our text: for there were not two Babylons in Egypt: as neither two Memphises: and doubtless in a like sense in the sacred Ethiopic Fasti, edited by Job Ludolf in the Ethiopic history, page 425, is understood Ptolemy the martyr of upper Memphis. Of those two cities was said in the preliminary Commentary. Add that here is designated the new Babylon, on the river Nile, afterward destroyed; from whose ruins was raised in the neighborhood the city of Cairo, the capital of all Egypt; from which its ruins are so far distant, which are said to be seen even now.

bb. Of Canopus above: to which may be added, from the notations of Valesius on book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, page 117, what he has concerning the notable monastery of the Tabennesiotes: whence it came about that Canopus, which before had been infamous for its luxury and delights, was called the island of Metanoea (Penitence): and he introduces St. Jerome and Athanasius the presbyter, speaking of it; the latter of whom in the same place calls Metanoea a suburb of the very great city of Alexandria, which was formerly called Canopus.

cc. Κάμισιν. Cotelier, Καμάσιν, and it is an undergarment, a linen inner tunic, a shirt, a linen cloth: of which word Cangius and the Onomasticon of Rosweyde. The etymology of the word St. Isidore of Seville hands down, book 9 of the Origins, chapter 22 toward the end: We call them camisiae, because in them we sleep in camae, that is, in our beds: for a bed or couch is called cama in the Spanish idiom. Camisia to the French chemise. In liturgical matters it is the outer white garment of the clergy, wont to be worn in church.

dd. The portrait of the Saint, or the outer appearance of his body, most accurately delineated here by the author of the Life, is narrated in Cotelier, page 371: in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 15, number 10: in the same place too this brief summary of his life. Our Ingolstadt codex is plainly singular, when it says: He dies at a hundred and fifteen years; but easily somewhere from 95 (which reading is proved to be genuine from our Life, the Lives of the Fathers, and Cotelier) 115 could be formed, the letter X being transposed.

* Cotelier τοῦ διορθώσασθαι ἑαυτοὺς καὶ πορευθῆναι etc.

* Cotelier ἄλλας ἀνομίας προστιθεῖ ἐπάνω τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτοῦ.

* Otherwise ἀγάπην.

* Added in Cotelier ἀγάπην.

* Cotelier εἰς τὸν πόδα μου, into my foot.

* Lives of the Fathers: When now he was about to deliver up his spirit.

* Otherwise ἤμελλεν παραδιδόναι τὸ πνεῦμα.

* Cotelier σώματι.

* Cotelier ἐγένετο.

* Otherwise τελειώσας.

* Otherwise σεβένινα, σεβεννίνα.

* λαβόμενοι.

EPILOGUE.

Ὦ μακαρίων μακαριώτατε Ἀρσένιε, τὸ καθαρὸν τοῦ Πνεύματος καταγώγιον· Τίς ἀξίως ἐφιηνεῖται λόγος τῶν σῶν κατορθωμάτων; ποῖον δὲ εἶδος ἀρετῆς πρῶτον ἔν σοι ἐπαινέσομαι; ἀναχώρησιν κόσμου; καὶ τίς οὕτως ἐπακηκοὼς φωνῆς θείας, κατέλιπε θᾶττον κόσμον ὅλον; Πρὸς τὸν τρόπον καὶ τὸν τόπον τῆς σωτηριώδους καταπαύσεως προσδραμὼν Ἀβραὰμ ὁ πατριάρχης, ἀλλὰ σὺν γυναικὶ καὶ ἀποσκευῇ· σὺ δὲ μονώτατος καὶ ἄσκευος καὶ ἀπέριττος, μόνον τοῦ Χριστοῦ τὸν σταυρὸν ἐπωμάδιον φέρων ηὐλίσθης ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ. Βασίλειοί σε αὐλαὶ οὐ καθείλκυσαν, ὑπεροχαὶ ἀξιωμάτων οὐ περικράτησαν. Ὅσον ταῦτα ἐκείνου θαυμασιώτερα προσέτυχεν ἐργασίαν. Τίς οὕτως συστραφεὶς τῶν αἰσθήσεων ἔξω κόσμου, καὶ τῶν κάτω φαντασιώντων χαρακτήρων γενόμενος, Θεῷ συλλαλῆσαι ἠξίωται; Μωσῆς ὁ μέγας ἀναχθεὶς ἐν τῷ Σιναίῳ· ἀλλὰ καὶ σὺ ἐν τῷ τῆς προσευχῆς στύλῳ ἐφθακὼς ὁμιλεῖν Θεῷ ἠξίου ἑκάστοτε. Κᾳκεῖνος τὸ πρόσωπον ἐντεῦθεν δόξῃ περιήστραπτο· σὺ δὲ οὐχ ὅλος πῦρ τῷ ὁρῶντι ἐδείκνυσο; ὦ τοῦ θαύματος· τῇ δι᾽ εὐχῆς πρὸς Θεὸν συναφείᾳ φλὸξ δεικνύμενος, ἐφόμοιος ὢν τοῦ μετεχομένου ὁ μετέχων, ἄγγελος πυριφλεγέθων, καὶ εἰ μὴ τολμηρῶς εἰπεῖν, τῆς Μωσαἳκῆς δόξης ὑπερφερέστερος. Τί δὲ ἡ στάσις ἡ πάννυχος; ἡ νὺξ ὡς ἡμέρα ταῖς προσευχαῖς ἐπεφώτιστο, ὡς ὁ θεῖος Δαβὶδ ἐμελογράφησεν. Ἥλιός σε παρεστῶν τῇ εὐχῇ ἡλίῳ παρέπεμπεν, τὴν κυκλικὴν περιδρομὴν ποιούμενος. Ὦ ἥλιε καὶ τοῦ ὄντως νοητοῦ ἡλίου ἐφάμιλλε· ἡ διάνοιά σου φωτὸς ἐγκύμων ὑπάρχουσα ἡλιακῶν ἀκτίνων καθαρώτερον, τοὺς λογισμοὺς εἰς οὐρανὸν ἠφίη, καὶ ὑπὲρ τοὺς οὐρανους ἀνατρέχοντας.

[26] Ἡσυχίας τερπνότητα; καὶ τίς σου ὤπται φιλησυχώτερος, τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων θορύβων ἀφιστάμενος, καὶ πρὸς Θεὸν μόνον μετεωριζόμενος. Πυθαγόραν φασὶ τὸν φιλόσοφον ἄλλῳ μὲν οὐδενὶ, βουσὶ δὲ καὶ ὀρνέοις προσλαλεῖν ἡσυχίας ἔρωτι· σὺ δὲ τοῦδε τὸ ἀφιλόσοφον διήλλεγξας ὡς σμικροπρεπὲς, μηδὲ φωνῆς ὀρνέων ἐπαΐοντα τὸν ἡσυχαστὴν ἠρεμεῖν. Ἔοικέν σου ἡ καθαρὰ καρδία πελάγει κατεστορεσμένῳ γαλήνῃ βαθείᾳ, πόῤῥω τῶν τῆς πονηρίας πνευμάτων βαλλομένων ἐπιπνοίᾳ τοῦ παναγίου Πνεύματος, ἐν ᾧ τὸ πλοῦν διαπεράνας, εἰς τὸν ἀκύμονα λιμένα τῆς ἄνω βασσιλείας κατέπαυσας. Ταπεινοφροσύνης ὕψος; καὶ τίς οὕτως ἐταπείνου ἑαυτὸν ἐν εὐτελείᾳ ἐσθῆτος; Τίς οὕτως τὰ πρῶτα ἔχων ἐν βασιλεῦσι, καὶ πολὺς ἐν παιδεύσει, ὕστατος ὤφθη ἐν ἀποκρύψει εὐγενείας τε καὶ σοφίας τῆς ἀπολλυμένης; ὁ χρυσοστόλιστος πενιχροφόρος, ὁ πολύσοφος ἀγροικιζόμενος· ὁ πολυμαθέστατος μαθητευόμενος· ταῖς ἑρωτήσεσιν [καὶ] ταῖς ἐκμαθήσεσι προσπαθείας νεκρότητα, καὶ παρῆκες ἑτέρῳ πλέον ἔχειν. Τὸ πρὸς τοὺς ἀγχιστεύοντας αἴσθεσθαι; Ἐντεῦθέν σοι τὸ λέγειν· Ἐγὼ πρὸ ἐκείνου ἀπέθανον, τῷ προαιρετικῷ δηλαδὴ θανάτῳ τοῦ φυσυκοῦ προτεθνηκότος σου. Ἐντεῦθεν τὸ μακάριόν σου ἐπίφθεγμα· Ἀρσένιε, διὸ ἐξῆλθες· ὃ ᾄδουσι χοροὶ μοναστῶν, φέροντες σωτηρίς ἐφόδιον· ἁμαρτίας γάρ ἐστιν ἐμπόδιον, τὴν αἰτίαν, δι᾽ ἧν κόσμου ἐπεῤῥάγημεν, ἐπαναμιμνήσκειν, καὶ πρὸς μηδὲν ἄλλο ἢ περὶ τοῦδε μόνου φροτίζειν.

[27] Τί δὲ ἡ άγαλλίασις τῆς θείας κατανύξεως, μελέτη θανάτου διηνεκὴς, ἀεννάως πελαγίζουσα ἐν τῇ καθαρᾷ καρδίᾳ σου, ἐξ ἧς τὰ ῤεῖθρα τῶν δακρύων ἀνελλειπῶς προχέοντα πυρσόν σοι ἀνῆψε θείας

ἀγαπήσεως; Τῇ σοφροσύνῃ δεύτερον Ἰωσὴφ εἰκότως καλέσαιμι· άλλὰ καὶ τὸ τῆς θήλεος μνημόσυνον εἰς ἅπαν ἐξαίρων ἐξ ἀγνῆς καρδίας σου· Ὁ ὄντως Φερώνυμος ἄρσην, καὶ οὐδὲν θηλυπρεπῶς ἐπιφερόμενος. Τῇ ἐγκρατείᾳ τὰ πάθη πτερνίζων, τὸν πατριάρχην Ἰακὼβ ἐζήλωσας, ἐσθίων διὰ τὸ ζῇν, οὐ ζῶν διὰ τὸ ἐσθίειν· ὃ γὰρ τοῖς ἔξω λόγῳ πεφιλοσίφηται, τοῦτό σοι ἔργῳ ἑκάστοτε ἐπεπλήρωτο. Τῇ ἀγρυπνίᾳ ὡς ἀσώματος διετέλεσας, κοιμίζων τοὺς ἀστέρας ταῖς ἐγρηγόρσεσι, παραπέμπων τὴν νύκτα ταῖς ἐπικλήσεσι, πάσης ἀρετῆς ἀνάπλεως, παντὸς κατορθώματος ἐραστὴς.. ἀκριβέστατος. Ὦ φωστὴρ τῆς ὑπ᾽ οὐρανὸν φωτεινότατε· Ὦ ἀστὴρ ἡσυχαστῶν αὐγοειδέστατε· Ὦ κλέος μοναστῶν πολυευκτότατον· Εὖγε ἄγγελε ἐπίγειε, ἀπαθείας ὡραιότησιν ἐπτερωμένε. Εὖγε ἀρετῶν παράδεισε, παντὸς ὡραίου κατορθώματος πεφυτευμένε. Εὖγε οὐρανὲ κατάστερε, ποικίλοις κάλλεσι … διουργημένε ἐφ᾽ ὕψει τοῦ καθαρωτάτου βίου …

O most blessed of the blessed, Arsenius, pure receptacle of the Spirit. What discourse could extol your right deeds with worthy praises ^a? The author, turned to the Saint, and comparing him with Moses, What kind of virtue shall I first praise in you? Your withdrawal from the world? And who, thus obedient to the divine word, more quickly left the whole world? To the manner and place of saving rest ran Abraham the patriarch, but with wife and baggage; but you, most alone [a] as any ever was, without baggage and superfluous things, bearing only the cross of Christ on your shoulders, dwelt in the desert. The imperial courts did not draw you; the summits of dignities did not detain you. How much more of the marvelous have these things than his deeds! And who, turned away from appetites outside the world, and from the lineaments of earthly impressions, was gifted with such an honor of conversing with God? That great Moses ascended Mount Sinai; but you too, occupying the pillar of prayer, received the honor of daily consorting with God. His face thereafter shone with glory: but did you not appear wholly fire to him who beheld you? (O miracle!) seeming, by the contact of prayer to God, to be changed into a flame; and you, to whom the thing was communicated, being like to the thing which was communicated, were an angel burning with fire, and, if I may speak not more boldly than is fitting, surpassing the Mosaic glory. But now what of the all-night standing? Night was illumined like day by prayers, as the divine David sang. The sun, standing by you as you prayed, sent you on to the sun, performing its circular course. O sun, truly rival of the sun endowed with understanding! Your mind, pregnant with light, more purely than the solar rays sent up ^b your thoughts to heaven, transcending the heavens themselves.

[26] Or shall I proclaim the pleasantness of solitude? by a recapitulation Who appeared more loving of solitude than you, withdrawing from human tumults, and lifted up to God alone? Pythagoras the philosopher they report to have conversed with no one else, but with oxen and birds, out of love of quiet: but you, refuting that which in him was foreign to philosophy, as little becoming, taught the hesychast to dwell in solitude, not hearing even the voice of birds ^c. Your pure heart was like a sea spread with deep tranquility, the spirits of malice cast far off by the breath of the most holy Spirit: under whose auspices, having measured your voyage, you rested in the calm harbor of the heavenly kingdom. Or shall I speak of the height of humility? Who so abased himself in the meanness of dress? Who, holding the first place among emperors, and conspicuous for much wisdom, appeared so utterly last, hiding his nobility and the wisdom which perishes? You who were clothed in a golden robe, wear a poor habit; you who were most wise, become rude and rustic; you who were a master most cultivated in disciplines, by questions and lessons learn the mortification of the affections, and yielded the better parts to another. Or shall I speak of how you were affected toward your kinsmen? Hence certainly your saying: I died before him: your voluntary death forestalling the natural. Hence your blessed saying: Arsenius, why did you go out? Which the choirs of monks chant together, bearing the viaticum of salvation. For sin is an impediment: to remember the cause for which we were torn from the world, and to have care of nothing else but this alone ^d.

[27] he recounts his virtues, But now what of the exultation of divine compunction, and the assiduous meditation of death, continually overflowing in your pure heart, from which the streams of tears, unceasingly flowing forth, kindled for you the flame of divine love? For chastity I would rightly call you a second Joseph; nay, you blotted out the memory of woman altogether from your pure heart; with a fitting signification of the matter bearing the name of "man" ^e, and displaying nothing effeminate. By temperance treading down the depraved perturbations of the soul, you emulated the patriarch Jacob, eating that you might live, not living that you might eat. For what was philosophized in word by those outside, that was everywhere fulfilled by you in deed. Without sleep you persevered, no otherwise than as if you had been incorporeal; putting the stars to sleep by your watchings, and passing the night in invocations, full of every virtue, and a most zealous lover of every right office. O most bright luminary of all the earth that is under heaven! O most radiant star of the hesychasts! O most longed-for glory of monks. Well done, earthly angel, clothed with the beauty of wings free from depraved appetites. Well done, paradise of virtues, planted with every ripe fruit of honesty. Well done, starry heaven, wrought with varied beauty… over the height of a most pure life… the rest is wanting.

ANNOTATIONS.